


Cowards die many times before their deaths

by Acecreatesthings



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-05-07 05:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 30,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acecreatesthings/pseuds/Acecreatesthings
Summary: “Hello?” The video recording shook as the person holding the camera adjusted it. “I don’t have much time.” The man finally stopped the shaky camera. “I’m an employee at the ICRE, and I have made a horrible, horrible, mistake.” He took a deep breath stepping back. “I’ll keep the import part brief.” He reaches into his pocket and pulled out the small porcelain bell. “My name is John hunger and I started the zombie apocalypse using the philosopher's stone, the Oculus, and the animus bell.”





	1. Week 1-Tres Horny Bois

**Author's Note:**

> So warnings here: There's a car accident (Nothing detailed), and also a little bit of graphic detail about the zombies?

Taako did not want to visit John. Magnus did not want to visit John. In fact, the only reason they WERE visiting John was because he had missed a day at work, something he NEVER did. In fact, John and his whole team had been missing for two days and Merle had been getting worried. 

“You called him a sanctimonious bastard! Just let him be!” Taako protested as Magnus carried him up the stairs. “We shouldn’t go just because you can’t leave a dude alone!”

“I’m WORRIED.” Merle corrected, “you know better than me that John never misses a day of work.”

“And he did have the Bell with him when he left.” Magnus pointed out, this is just routine

“Blahhh” Taako groaned “this is lame as fuck my dudes!” Magnus chuckled and moved to open the door to Johns floor. Taako sat up suddenly his ears flicked forward. “No Magnus wai-“ the door slammed open and a grey-green tinted skinned man charged forward foaming at the mouth. 

“Hello, sir hail and well me-t” Magnus grunted shoving the attacker down the stairs. Taako jumped off of Magnus’s back and grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and quickly blasted the figure as it climbed up the stairs back after them. Magnus grabbed the extinguisher from him and chucked it solidly into the guys head. To all of their disgust, the head cocked backward at an unnatural angle. 

“Ew,” Merle said blatantly. 

“Someone went a little too hard on the drugs” Taako’s ears wiggled with amusement. They laughed uncomfortably and a groaning noise came from the figure. Its head started making a snapping noise as the neck slowly shifted back into a normal position. Magnus shifted worriedly glancing at Merle. 

“They’re not supposed to do that.” Merle glanced up at Magnus who was already grabbing the emergency fire ax off the wall. The creature finished snapping back into place and launched itself at Merle. Magnus let out a roar and slammed the ax into its chest from the flat end sending it flying. Magnus glanced over at Taako only to find the elf taking off onto Johns floor. 

“Wha- Taako!! What the fuck!” 

“Fuck off Maggie I gotta check a thing!” Taako shouted back at him kicking open the door to a specific apartment. 

“Hey, Hurles!” He shouted into the apartment. “You doing alright? There’s some fuckboy on your floo-Oh my god!!”  A large man in the same state as the one on the states that Taako quickly recognized as Hurley’s father reached forward 

“Taako watch out!” Hurley slammed into Taako diving out the door and kicking it shut. 

“Hurley WHAT THE FUCK!” Taako yelped as the halfling leaped up and shoved a metal pole into the lock on her door. 

“That thing bit him,” Hurley explained. “And probably about half the floor.” Hurley glanced around nervously and her eyes landed on Magnus and Merle. “Nonono you let it out!?!?” 

“Uh… maybe?” 

“Congratulations fuckos you started the goddamn apocalypse!!” Hurley snapped, Merle ignored the conversation and opened the door to Johns room. It was soundly empty but the window was broken. There were bloody handprints on the floor and the curtains were torn. Merle never understood the analogy of “my room looks like a tornado hit it” until now. There were glass shards on the floor and a camera on a tripod with the red light still on.

“Hurley I don't think we started it” Merle pointed to Johns room walking over to turn it off. Hurley ran over and slid to a stop. 

“So that’s why” Hurley muttered. “This idiot was screaming the other night and one of the neighbors went to complain. I heard some arguing and a thud, and then nothing for the rest of the night. Next morning Dad was fighting with that THING.” She took the camera from Merle and walked it over to the computer. “Let’s see what he has to say.” 

 

“Hello?” The video recording shook as the person holding the camera adjusted it. “I don’t have much time.” The man finally stopped the shaky camera. “I’m an employee at the ICRE, and I have made a horrible, horrible, mistake.” He took a deep breath stepping back. “I’ll keep the import part brief.” He reaches into his pocket and pulled out the small porcelain bell. “My name is John hunger and I started the zombie apocalypse using the philosopher's stone, the Oculus, and the animus bell.” He held up the porcelain bell and slammed it on the floor smashing it to bits. He glanced back up at the camera in remorse “it started with Lucas and my team. I knew the rituals that Lucretia had deciphered had to do with something important. And after reading all of the other writings she had on the lights culture. I couldn’t help it.” He looked at the camera. “I had my teams consent, don’t you worry about that. But I don’t think they- I don’t think any of us could expect this.” Johns' voice was even and calm despite the banging on the bedroom door behind him. “At first there was nothing and we assumed it was nothing but a flashy ritual. Lucas said he wanted to stay and help me review the notes and well…” he glanced back at his bedroom door which slammed open revealing Lucas, in the same state as the thing Magnus had thrown down the stairs just moments earlier. Johns speech sped up but he remained calm. “The other relics are stored elsewhere and… I am so sorry. Merle. Merle, I’m so sorry, I was so very very wrong.” The video glitched out and suddenly John was much closer to the camera lens. 

“Taako, Magnus, Merle, you guys are probably outside my building right now.” Taako blinked shocked at how recent this video was made. “The ancient rituals have a cure. You NEED to gather the other relics and find Lucretia. She should know what to do.” He had scratches on his face and looked like he’d just fought his way through hell. He held up his arm where a bite mark had the illness climbing up into his system. He opened his mouth to say more but suddenly Lucas tackled him. 

“No! You should be dead!” John was shouting as Lucas grabbed at John and they both fell struggling off-screen. There was a sound of breaking glass, and then moments later a knock on the door. Hurley turned off the camera. 

“Well holy fuck.” Hurley decided glancing up at Taako and Magnus. 

“Fuck no!” Taako was arguing with Magnus. 

“Taako what the FUCK does that mean?” Magnus snapped as Merle wrapped his arm.

“Guys” Hurley glanced at the doors of the floors apartments. 

“It means!” Taako snapped, “that I’m not risking my life to grab a bunch of shit!”

“Taako. You KNOW we can’t just leave them there right?” Magnus took a step forward. “We have to at least find the oculus and the stone so that this can’t happen again!”

“Guys” Hurley tried again watching the doors of the apartments start to rattle

“They already happened! Fuck all!” Taako snapped “they happened and are fucking CONTAGIOUS!”

“Taako-“ Magnus took a step back as Taako picked up the glaive from Johns floor.

“Fucking asshole didn’t even look at it” Taako grumbled angrily.

“GUYS SHUT UP!” Hurley snapped and they went silent. The doors of the apartments rattled for a bit before stopping. 

“That’s some horror movie shit” Taako mumbled and Hurley held a finger up to her lips before pointing to the stairs. 

Before the boys could respond Hurley’s phone erupted with  **_“CAUSE I MAY BE BAD BUT I'M PERFECTLY GOOD AT IT”_ ** Hurley Yelped and fumbled with her phone trying desperately to silence it. She slid to answer trying hard not to blush as the boys stared at her. There was a beat of silence before the sound of breaking wood. 

“TIME TO GO!” Magnus decided picking up Merle and Hurley, Taako was already halfway down the stairs. Hurley decided to leave that to Magnus 

“Sloane I don’t really have time to talk right now-“ there was a sickening thud from across the phone. “Sloane what was that!? Did you hit another deer?” 

“HA” Sloane laughed, “I wish! So Hurles. Apparently, zombies are a thing because three of them just came out of your apartment complex.” There was a pause, “and I’ve seen like ten of them on the way here” 

“Huh?” Hurley glanced up the stairs as a zombie started stumbling down the stairs. She gripped Magnus’s shirt as he jumped onto the next floor down “Fuck why are you in town?”

“I’m picking up my brother.” Sloane paused, “if he’s not zombie chow” 

“Oh, I didn’t know your brother was in town?” Hurley mused and Magnus groaned.

“GUYS PRIORITIES PLEASE” 

“Was that Magnus?” Sloane sounded confused.

“I’ll explain later! You’re outside right?”

“Uh yeah right outside the main entrance-“

“MAGNUS OUT THIS DOOR.” Hurley snapped and Magnus grabbed Taako's shirt pulling him out the door. Sloane’s large black truck screeched to a stop. 

“Taako, Merle, Magnus you’re in the bed!” 

Hurley ordered jumping off of Magnus into Sloane’s lap. “Hi, babe move over.” Hurley grinned and Sloane wordlessly made her way to the passenger seat. “HANG ON!!” Hurley slammed her foot on the gas as Sloane reached back with harnesses for the boys. Taako put on the harness as well as clung to the rope. Magnus didn’t even bother he just slipped the harness on and leaned over the edge to slam his ax into the brains of the zombies who somehow could keep up. 

“Where to?” Hurley asked Sloane making a swerving motion to avoid t-boning a car. 

“HELL YEAH HURLEY!” Taako cheered “we lost them!” Hurley shifted slightly to check, sure enough, the road behind them was empty. She turned back and realized her mistake. She was going 150 straight towards a small business. 

“FUCK.” She screamed and Sloane grabbed her seatbelt and buckled Hurley in before buckling herself in.  “BOYS JUMP!” She shouted slamming her foot on the break and turning the wheel hard to the right. Taako heard Hurley tell them to jump and glanced back towards their heading. He didn’t need to look twice. He grabbed Magnus and Merle, cut their ropes with his glaive, and jumped into the ditch. He blacked out briefly and when he came to, the building had collapsed and the only thing left of Hurley and Sloane was the back of the truck sticking out of the rubble. 

“SHIT!” Taako shouted rushing forward. Magnus grabbed him, covered his mouth and pulled him into the nearest alleyway as the zombies approached the building. Taako waited for the zombies to leave before attacking Magnus with his bare hands. “Let me go you fucking ass!” He was obviously angry but he didn’t let his voice get above a whisper. Didn’t want the zombies coming back. 

“There’s a Walgreens down the street” Merle suggested, “I can patch us up there” 

“Let me go! They might! They might be okay!” 

“There’s no way we can help them Taako!” Magnus protested.

“HORSESHIT!” Taako let his voice get raised a bit. 

“Taako” Merle tried. 

“HOOOORRRRSSSEEEESHIT” Taako insisted. The building shifted and sagged lower at that and taako’s protests fell to silence. He stopped fighting and Magnus released him. Taako slowly made his way to the building, reached over and picked up the glaive from the bed of the truck. 

“Fuck Hurles. You were always telling me to keep my eyes on the road why-“ He muttered before straightening up. “This is fine.” He turned to Magnus. “Let’s go get supplies so we can get my fucking rock” Taako grumbled, 

 

“I’m ending this shit.”


	2. Lucretia | Davenport

Lucretia was sitting outside a Starbucks when it started. She was typing up her notes from this week's work when they attacked. She heard a scream and watched in horror as this- this humanoid  _ thing _ attacked the girl in the table just a few feet from her. Lucretia covered her mouth standing up with a start as the girl started seizing, a black sickness crawling up her veins, slowly turning the girl into a creature similar to itself. She slowly took her notebook and slipped it into her backpack. She reached for her laptop but the thing turned on her and Lucretia decided she could retype notes up later. She took off running. She ran and didn’t look back. She didn’t need to. She could hear the snarling of the thing behind her. As she ran slapping her backpack on Lucretia decided she couldn’t keep calling it thing, so she named it as she ran. 

 

She decided to call it  _ The Hunger _ . 

 

It seemed fitting enough. It eventually stopped chasing her to attack an unsuspecting boy skateboarding past her. Lucretia stopped for a moment to try and warn him, but by then it was too late. She took a deep breath and continued sprinting as fast as she could, shouting at anyone who dared try to investigate the being pursuing her. 

“MOVE!” She screamed waving her hands desperately and a few actually listened. A man in a dark outfit carrying a very real looking scythe did more than listen and helped her. 

“This way!” he urged taking her hand and pulling her into the alleyway as the Zombie sprinted past them. “You okay?” 

“Fine. Thank you.” She panted heavily. “ this is the nightmare scenario. I hate running.” She glanced over at him, “Why do you have a scythe?” 

“It’s a… ” The man hesitated, unsure, “It’s for-” There was a growl and they both looked up. The zombie was back, and it brought friends. 

“FUCk, ” Lucretia said out of breath, her hands on her knees. “They’re spreading like wildflowers!” 

“I’m pretty sure the saying is wildfire…” The man tried to correct. 

“Don’t care!” Lucretia took off. “Split up. They can’t chase both of us!” She urged him and the man turned left while she took a harsh right and sprinted for her apartment.

Lucretia still wasn’t sure how she made it, but she did. She rushed into her apartment and slammed the door shut and locked it as she slid down to catch her breath in her apartment. She kneeled on the floor, her hands over her head for a good five minutes before she could see straight again. 

“I need to start running more often.” She decided grabbing her walking stick from beside the door to help her stand up. “I feel like such an old lady” She laughed to herself remembering she had said the exact same thing when Magnus carved her the stick back in the Amazon. Back when they first found the civilization, stomping through the swampy area of the bulwark trees exhausted her and she had bad knees already, so Magnus had made her it as an attempt to help. It didn’t help much but she appreciated the sentiment. She remembered Magnus dragging her into the temple where they had found the floating voidfish and it’s child inside-

“fUck! Fisher!” She snapped her head up glanced out her window, the streets were already chaos and the Gardens where Fisher and the Bulwark trees were on the other side of town. Lucretia glanced down at her backpack. It was small and easy to carry, she liked to use it for walks through the city. Taking a deep breath Lucretia made sure the door and window were locked before starting to work. The hunger spread through biting, so Lucretia was thankful it was starting to get cooler out. She grabbed the jean jacket barry had gifted her and pulled it on. Along with the pair of leather fingerless gloves from Lup, and the pair of black jean style pants she had on completed the outfit nicely. She already had a pair of sneakers on, so as far as function went she’d say she was doing well. Plus her striped t-shirt made it look at least kinda decent so Taako shouldn’t disown her for wearing 65% jeans. She tied her leather jacket around her waist just in case. She should be okay until she gets to the gardens, but she had clothes stashed there- Or well,  _ Magnus _ had clothes stashed there and she would steal them from him. She grabbed her backpack and started grabbing essentials. She would need some sort of weapon- she glanced at her walking stick, check. Food? She grabbed a handful of granola bars and tossed it in. It’d be gross and nasty but anything else would be too much. First aid kit? She grabbed the small one Merle had bought her for her birthday and threw it in. She grabbed one of her journals and a few pencils before tying her hair up in a messy bun with a ponytail. 

She slipped the backpack on and grabbed her walking stick before walking out. 

“Hold on Fisher I’ll be there soon,” Lucretia promised. 

 

* * *

 

Davenport was not happy. In fact, he was absolutely pissed. He had no idea where Merle and the others were, zero idea on Lup and Barry's status, and he hadn’t heard from Lucretia since before the zombies started showing up. At least Barry and Taako have both managed to send him some sort of signal that they’re okay. They were spread pretty thin but cell phones still worked surprisingly. Probably not for much longer but it was nice. Magnus has stolen a bunch of walkie-talkies and handed them out to everyone earlier in the month. The rule was that Davenport couldn’t contact them until they contacted him. It was infuriating. Lucretia hadn’t been heard from in over a month though, everyone was starting to assume the worst. Davenport heard movement outside the doors to the gardens and spun pointing his pistol at the zombie hoard coming his way. He was about to pull the trigger when this blur of black and white and someone tackled the zombie from behind and brutally ripped the throat out with a hunting knife. Davenport has seen survivors in the past month but none were as proactive as this one. They dropped the now dead zombie and grabbed the stick off of their back swinging it into the others. Davenport watched in awe studying the newcomer. They had short curly white hair but it was choppy, probably cut it themselves with that knife. Davenport almost didn’t notice that because they had a hood up over their head with a bandana sewn into it as a mask. They had a small backpack  that was bouncing around with them, they had their leg tied in a really sketchy looking stint, and their t-shirt underneath the jacket was burnt up and there was some pretty serious looking burns crawling up their stomach. The pack of zombies had started groaning and approaching them. And they chucked the bag to Davenports feet. 

“Watch that for a second!” They snapped not even bothering to look up. Davenport looked down and his heart stopped at The sight of the journal that had slipped from the bag. He only knew one person who decorated their covers like that 

“Lucretia!” He shouted not realizing his mistake until it was too late. Lucretia stopped and turned to stare at him and for a moment they were both silent with shock. But then that shock was brought down by the zombie swiping at Lucretia’s side with its nails. 

“Fuck!” Lucretia instinctively shoved it away but tripped in the process sending her down onto the stairs in a crumbled mess. Davenport pulled out his pistol and took out one, two, three- all of the zombies with ease before picking up Lucretia’s bag and running over to her. She hadn’t even sat up. She was just laughing on the ground absolutely sobbing with joy. 

“I made it,” she laughed, “I  _ fucking _ made it!” Davenport reaches her and started helping her up. 

“Lucretia it’s not safe outside we should get inside I can patch you up in there.” 

“I made it and you’re alive and this isn’t some fucked up dream. I  _ MADE _ it!” Davenport opened the door listening intently, he could inquire her about the past month later, she probably had a concussion, and those burns were really concerning.

“I had to learn to fight and protect myself and, oh my god Davenport I actually fucking MADE IT.” Lucretia was in a daze but she let Davenport lead her inside. He then locked the doors and sat her down on a chair. 

“I didn’t know what to do” Lucretia was crying more genuinely now as Davenport pulled out a first aid kit, “I couldn’t find my phone, and then I fell down a fire escape from the apartment complex, and they almost had me when they grabbed my hair- but I knew I had to keep going.” She sobbed pulling her hood back and her bandana down. “I thought you were dead, I thought everyone was dead, but I knew the gardens were one of the most protected places in the city and Fisher was all alone and-“ 

“Lucretia I’m so proud of you but you just slammed your head on concrete stairs. Please keep calm,” Davenport sighed reaching up with the hydrogen peroxide. Lucretia flinched away snatching his wrist instinctively. Davenport stared in shock, the flinching he was used to, the defensiveness?

“You’ve been alone for the past month haven’t you?” He murmured lowering his hand. Lucretia froze releasing his hand. “Lucretia?” Davenport pressed and she bit her lip nodding a confirmation. 

“Haven’t you?” She whimpered confused. 

“I’ve met with everyone. They called me shortly after this all started and they all came here to regroup.” Davenport shook his head. “We were looking for you- but we had no idea where to start. We actually stopped looking last week. So now Barry and Lup are our after the gauntlet, while Taako Magnus and Merle go to get the stone.” He placed the hydrogen peroxide in her hand and gently guided her so she could apply it herself, “I’m so proud of you Lucretia but now I need your help.” Davenport explained. “John said you could help cure the-“

“Uh Huh.” Lucretia hummed before She keeled over and Davenport barely managed to catch her before she hit the floor again. 

“Fisher!” Davenport grunted noticing the floating jellyfish in the doorway, “little help?” The jellyfish hummed it’s tune and came over helping Davenport slowly lower the girl to the floor. It hummed worriedly

“She had to grow up in less than a month.” Davenport sighed, “shes injured and exhausted but she should be fine”  he gently brushed her hair out of the way before pulling out his walkie talkie thIs seemed like a good excuse as any to break the rules. “Guys. I found her” his heart swelled with pride looking down at the unconscious form of her. She had been alone for over a month but she was alive and she  _ made it _ , “I found Lucretia.”  

 

“She fucking made it.” 


	3. Blupjeans

“Hey, babe.” Barry tossed Lup a can of bug spray and a lighter. A little more unsophisticated than what she was used to using but it got the job done. “Lucretia's alive.” Lup actually fumbled with her flames and turned to face her boyfriend. 

“Seriously?”

“Honest to god.” Barry held up the walkie-talkie, “Capnport just broke the radio silence to let us know.” Lup screamed with delight dropping the lighter and the can of flammable air and tackled her boyfriend. 

“She’s okay!!” She laughed, “oh my god she’s okay!!!!” 

Barry kissed Lup’s head before releasing her to smack a local zombie with his baseball bat. The nails connect with the zombie's brain and he falls to the floor. 

“I think we should move,” He said unable to break his stare away from the dead thing.  _No, you can't have it. No, you can't have it that's bad. Barry no. Barry-_

“Yeah but I wanna raid Aces first” Lup whined and Barry laughed.

“Fifteen minutes.”

Lup came out with another backpack that made muffled clinking noises as she ran. Barry still had his small bag but now it was weighed down by a gift he had snatched for Lup. 

“Did she say she was okay?”

“Actually she didn’t talk at all.” Barry shrugged, “Davenport and I switched to channel 2 so we wouldn’t bother the boys, and he explained that she was actually pretty beaten up, it was impressive that she didn’t have any bites on her.” Lup skidded to a stop in front of the experimental department, she didn’t say anything as her and Barry kicked down the door. She grinned with delight, however, at the sight of her umbrella. 

“Oh my BABY” She cried with absolute joy picking it up and clicking the trigger. The metallic canopy popped open and a blast of flame sprayed out of the tip. “HELL YEAH!” She twisted the handle a bit to check the ammo. “FULL LOAD I'M GONNA ROAST THEM ZOMBIES!” 

Barry laughed and walked over to the gauntlet inside the safe. He clicked a few buttons and placed his finger on the thumbprint. There was a prick as the safe took his blood, a few beeping noises, and the safe clicked open. 

“Barry,” Lup said dead serious. “Move.” 

Barry glanced back at her confused and yelped ducking out of the way as Lup blasted the glove with flames she kept holding the trigger letting he wave of heat blast into the safe and out causing the fire alarm to activate. Even as the sprinkler activated, Lup still held the trigger down. Even as Barry tried to tell her it was destroyed, she held the trigger. Even though she was crying, she held the trigger. She kept holding it until her load was empty. And even then she dropped the umbrella and tried to do the same with her bug spray. Barry took the initiative and grabbed Lup’s hands. 

“Hey. Hey it’s okay!” Lup looked up at him tearfully. “It’s gone. You did it.” Her ears flicked down and she sagged into his shoulder sobbing harshly. 

“This is our fault.” She whimpered shaking in his arms. Barry grabbed the umbrella from the floor along with the case of loads from the desk and guided Lup out of the room.

“Then let’s burn it to the ground.” He said, throwing a large walnut at the sprinkler denting it just enough to slow the water flow. Barry handed Lup his gift from the hardware store. A two gallon jug of fire starter. 

“Light them the fuck up.” He told her pressing it into her hands.  

 

Lup took the jug and sprinted up the stairs. Barry took out a second jug and moved to find a way to turn off the sprinklers. 

 

They met at the entrance to the building, Lup’s backpack no longer clinked but it still looked to be about the same weight. 

“What did you grab?”

“I found a crap ton of Lucy’s journals” Lup grinned shifting the backpack, “figured she’d appreciate the familiarity.” 

“I’m sure she’s gonna love it.” Barry handed her a lot match holding the box. Lup got to hold the flammables, he held the firestarters. 

“So uh babe,” Lup held up her match. “When I drop this we should book it.” 

“Huh why?” 

“I made about thirty bombs at Aces and I left them all over the building.” Lup smiled at him before dropping the match and booking it as far away from the building as possible. Barry did a double take before following 

“YOU ARE INSANE!” He screamed at her as they ran.

“BUT YOU LOVE ME” she screamed back taking his hand. 

They held tight, sprinting down the street before ducking into a building and locking the doors. Lup stood outside for a brief moment to watch the explosion and Barry pulled her inside using her umbrella to roast an oncoming zombie. He slid the door shut and locked and took a seat panting. Lup squeezes his hand, her ears were flicked down and she pulled her knees up to her chest still holding his hand. 

“This is our fault.” She repeated and Barry pulls her hand up up to kiss it gently. 

“Maybe but we’re going to get through it together,” he promised holding her hand tightly refusing to let go. 

 

And they keep not letting go.


	4. Kravitz, Julia, and Angus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kravitz almost died.

There was a number of things Kravitz regretted. For example, he regretted wearing all black on a sunny day, he regretted not saying hello to that cute elf that had walked past him earlier that day. But did he regret buying a fully functional scythe weapon to match his death/goth aesthetic on the day of the apocalypse? 

Fuck. No.

Especially not after he somehow got the zombies attention. He just wanted to help the girl. He definitely didn’t plan on getting chased by zombies. 

“Split up!” She had shouted at him, “They can’t chase both of us!” It’s been a month since he had heard from her, and boy he hoped she was okay. 

Because he certainly wasn’t. How the fuck did he get this surrounded? One of the zombies shoved him back and he tripped falling on his back, the only thing keeping the zombie away from him was his scythe’s handle. He grunted, kicking the zombie in the nuts and throwing it over his head into the one behind him. This only seemed to make an opening for more zombies. 

“HELP!” Kravitz shouted standing up and swinging his scythe in a wide circle. Under normal circumstances, yelling in a zombie battle would be bad because that just equaled more zombies, but at this point, Kravitz doubted he would survive without help. He kept swinging his scythe backing up trying to get to some form of safety. How did he mess up this badly? How did he get their attention so well? He blinked and groaned, he must have started singing again. 

“HEY DEATH INCARNATE!” Someone shouted from above “YOU NEED HELP?” Kravitz glanced up and in his lapse of concentration he tripped and fell backward. He let out a shout of alarm as the zombies swarmed him, he’s never been so glad for his death aesthetic because how else would he have managed this long without them breaking skin with their teeth. Kravitz stared in shock as the zombie he was fighting off with his scythe suddenly had a hatchet implanted in its forehead. 

“Nice shot Ma’am!” A young boy’s voice echoed through the clearing. Kravitz turned in shock towards the voice only to have a woman knock him back to the ground, tear the hatchet out of the zombie’s forehead and slam it into the next one. 

“Angus!” She shouted, “Get this idiot safe I’ll take care of these mother fucking son of bitches!” 

“Yes, Ma’am!” Angus ran up and grabbed Kravitz’s hands tugging him away from the battle. Kravitz grabbed his scythe and confusedly followed the young boy down the block into an abandoned apartment complex. 

“You’re inside there?” Kravitz sounded shocked and Angus laughed, 

“It’s actually quite safe sir! Missus Burnsides cleared out all the zombies and they can’t open the doors!” 

“Why not?” Kravitz asked and Angus dropped a rock on the door handle. There was a loud sparking noise and the rock shot off in another direction. 

“Zombies aren’t electric proof.” He smiled at him. 

“Okay how do we get-” Angus started climbing up the uneven brick wall of the apartment. Likely built that way for aesthetic purposes, and not for climbing so Kravitz’s alarm was well met. 

“Kid!! That’s not safe!” He shouted as Angus climbed up and rested on the fire escape to stare down at him.  

“What the hell are you doing idiot? We gotta go!” The woman from earlier ran past him and scrambled up the wall grabbing the ladder of the fire escape and riding it down until she was back holding eye contact with Kravitz. “We’ve got a solid two minutes before they catch up. Let’s  _ go _ .”

Kravitz swallowed and nodded holding his scythe awkwardly as he climbed up after her. The exact moment he reached the second floor she pulled the ladder up tied a rope around her ax in a very elaborate knot and chucked it as hard as she could into a zombies head. Which she then tugged on the rope and mercilessly ripped the ax back out of its head. 

“I’m Julia Burnsides.” 

“Kravitz Mcallister.” 

“Woof that’s a mouthful.” Julia chuckled and then went dead serious. “They didn’t bite you did they?” 

Kravitz noticed the way she was holding her ax’s and was thankful his answer was, “No, I managed to fend them off. Thank you for coming to my aid though.” 

“Yeah… I wasn’t out there for you but I figured might as well save who we can.” Julia looked sad and started fiddling with her wedding ring. 

“Your husband out there?” 

“Somewhere.” She nodded, “And I’m really worried, He’s an absolute  _ idiot _ .” 

“Uh huh,” Kravitz glanced over at Angus who was writing in a notebook. 

“How old are you Mr. Mcallister?” He asked and Julia laughed. 

“Angus he’s not a suspect for murder” 

“He might be!” Angus protested, “we don’t know what he did to make it this far!” 

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Kravitz promised, “but if it will make you feel better I turned thirty on the day of the apocalypse” 

“How many zombies have you killed?”

“Lost track,” Kravitz shrugged. 

“How did you survive this long?”

“Hitched a ride with a pair of twins that were a little too violent for my tastes. So I ditched them last week.” 

“Do you have family nearby?” Kravitz tensed remembering the vivid sight of his sisters truck embedded in some buildings wreckage. 

“Not anymore.” He tried to smile but it probably looked more like a grimace.

“Oh.” Angus set his pen down, “I’m sorry.” He glanced over at Julia who was fiddling with the lock on a binder. “Did you try his birthday?” 

“Yes!” Julia growled pressing her hands through her hair. 

“And yours?” Angus pressed,

“Tried it. And I tried yours too.” 

“Even the dogs birthday?” Angus inquired and Julia laughed, 

“Yes, Angus I tried that one.”

“Try 07-31-12” Angus suggested and there was a moment before the lock clicked open. 

“What was that?” Julia blinked and Angus smiled adjusting his glasses, 

“The day you adopted me, Miss. Julia.”

“Nice one kiddo!” Julia ruffled his hair as she opened the binder and set it aside. “What would you like for dinner?” 

“I found some pizzas!” Angus chirped eagerly dumping out his bag and Julia’s eyes lit up. 

“Fuck yeah real food!” Julia pumped her fist into the air. She turned on Kravitz her eyes alight with joy. “You know how to cook?” 

“Uh. yes?” 

“Sweet you cook pizzas. I’m deciphering my husband's dumb ass handwriting,” Julia snatched up the binder and ran over to the coffee table to investigate. 

“Sooo….” Kravitz glanced over at Angus hesitating. He leaned down and whispered, “I don’t suppose you know how to work an oven?” There was a beat of silence Angus giggled, and his giggle turned into a laugh, and his laugh turned into pure delighted cackling. Julia glanced up from the binder staring in shock. Kravitz was too busy laughing with the kid to notice her taking a picture with her phone. 

*******

“I haven’t heard him laugh in a long time,” Julia murmured sitting next to Kravitz after tucking Angus into bed. 

“He’s a good kid,” Kravitz smiled. “Creepily smart, but a good kid.”

“He’s my pride and joy.” Julia smiled glancing down the hallway. There was a beat of silence before Julia screamed in frustration and slid the binder to the floor. “I don’t KNOW any of this shit!!” She gestures to the binder with anger. “Risked my life to get home. Killed my fucking zombie dad and I have NOTHING that tells me where my husband is!” Julia started tearing up. She stopped and wiped her eyes, relieved beyond measure that Angus was in bed. The last thing she needed was him thinking she couldn’t handle this. He was already worried after watching her kill Steven. 

“Can I see?” Kravitz picked up the binder and took a seat beside her “Oh.” He blinked shocked at the amount of information here. “Okay first question,” Kravitz decides. “You don’t know anything about your husband's job?”

“He's working security for some research place. He’s not allowed to tell me more.” Julia groaned placing her face in her hands.

“So this binder has all his paperwork.” Kravitz explained, “each of these tabs separates information on each of the research departments.” 

“Well, what’s with the garbage language?” Julia demanded, her face still in her hands, and Kravitz stared at her confused. 

“It’s  _ elven _ .” He wrinkled his nose in confusion as he set the binder down on the coffee table. 

“Wow.” Julia’s head snapped up. “Seriously?” 

“YOUR HALF ELF!!” Kravitz held his hands out in shock and confusion. 

“I lived with my human father!” Julia countered and Kravitz relented. “My husband mentioned a stone?” She frowned and Kravitz flipped to the third tab. 

“Oh.” He blinked, “that’s about three miles down the road” 

“Really?” Julia perked up. “Well, that’s great then! We can leave in the morning!” 

“Don’t you think your son should have a weapon?” Kravitz asked and Julia blinked shocked before laughing. 

“Kravitz he's got a 22 pistol in his little handbag, plus a dagger. Along with a notebook full of information on these things.” She snickered. “My  _ son- _ ” Kravitz noticed the pride in her voice when she said that. “-Is the most competent person on the planet. He’s perfectly capable of handling the apocalypse.” She grinned at him and there was a shuffling sound down the hall that made Kravitz and Julia panic. 

“Uhm… miss Julia? Can you come sleep with me tonight?” Angus was rubbing his eyes looking moderately embarrassed. Julia and Kravitz let out a silent sigh of relief. No zombies, just scared little boys.  “I Uh. It’s safer in numbers.” Kravitz smiled recognizing the bad excuse for ‘I’m scared’ and gently pat Julia’s shoulder. 

“Go ahead, I’ll take first watch. Least I could do when you saved my life.” Julia smiled thankfully at Kravitz before taking Angus’s hand and walking with him back into the room. Kravitz flipped through the book worriedly. This company… Did Julia know what her husband had gotten into?


	5. THB

Taako blinked in annoyance as HIS security program wouldn’t let HIM in. 

“Uh, Taako.” Merle pushed him. 

“No fuck off. Next question hodgepodge! SPELLING!” 

“How do you spell aarakocra!” The voice replied and Taako screamed in frustration. 

“THAT'S NOT ONE OF THE SECURITY QUESTIONS!!” 

“That’s not very sportsmanlike” the voice replied and Magnus swore he heard someone giggle Through the speaker. 

“A-r-“

“Incorrect.”

“I PROGRAMMED YOU YOU ASSHOLE! LET ME THE FUCK IN!!” Taako screamed. 

“I’m sorry. I cannot do that.” The voice replied

“Fuck it. Mango bust down the door.” Taako took a step back still vibrating with anger. 

“I wouldn’t do-“ there was a scream and the voice suddenly stopped sounding like a robot and more like a young kid. “MOM!” The audio cut out and Magnus pulled out his ax, he had gotten an actual proper one earlier this month. 

“Someone’s in trouble going in!!” Magnus charged the door.

“Wait- Magnus-“ Taako suddenly remembered the doors electric- Magnus broke the door down with ease. Oh. Okay then. Guess the electric door was off. Merle waddled after Magnus and Taako stood outside baffled over how someone had managed to hack his security system.  he shook his head, grabbed his glaive, and walked inside. 

 

“MOTHER FUCKING SON OF A BITCH WHO THE FUCK LEFT THE DOOR OPEN?” The victim screamed kicking the zombie away with her heel. A dark-skinned man swung his scythe at a few zombies coming towards him and a small child sitting beside a computer. Taako suspected that was who hacked his system, which was impressive. Though, he was more impressed with the attractive man wielding the scythe. 

“Hey, guys I’m fucking gay,” Magnus muttered staring at the victim who smashed a hatchet into the zombie's forehead. Taako murmured an agreement as the victim moved out of the way and tackling one of the zombies, trying to get to the dark-skinned man and the child with the headset on. She pulled her hood back letting her long hair fall out of its bun. 

“Get the fuck away from my son!” She snarled burying the hatchet into its chest.

“MOM!” The kid shouted standing up but the man held out a hand stopping the kid from running into the zombies.

“ _ Guys I’m fucking straight _ ” Magnus muttered as the woman did a spin and her foot took an ugly twist before she collapsed to the ground. 

“Mother of FUCK!” She snarled, moving the hatchet quickly to bury it in the zombie’s forehead. 

“Julia!” The man shouted alarmed as she tried to stand up only to collapse again.

“Guys! I’m fucking married!” Magnus rushed forward but Merle and Taako grabbed him holding him back. 

“SHIT!” Julia complained loudly, “THAT’S UGLY AS FUCK!” 

When Taako released Magnus, Julia had already started trying to sit up, her ankle at an unnatural angle. Angus was already at her side helping her with a first aid kit from his bag. The dark-skinned man had finished separating the heads from each of the zombies with his scythe.

“Ew,” Merle said blatantly and Taako smacked him. 

“Go help her idiot!”  

“Julia!” Magnus shouted shoving past both of them and Julia’s head jerked up at that. 

“MAGNUS!” She visibly relaxed as her husband grabbed both her and Angus pulling them into a hug. “I thought you were dead you fucking idiot!” She scolded him running her hands through his hair. Angus was too busy sobbing to say anything but he held tight to Magnus. Julia suddenly pushed Magnus off of her. Magnus frowned worriedly. 

“Julia? Is something-“

“GUESS WHO WON THE BET SUCKER. PAY UP!!” Julia laughed in his face.

“Huh?” Angus sniffled absolutely baffled.

“You called her mom?” Magnus feigned offense. “Angus! I trusted you!” 

“Guys move over I’ve got the first aid kit.” Merle walked over with his much bigger first aid kit and pulled out a roll of thick bandages. “Yeesh, that’s ugly.” He glanced up at her.

“Well guess I won’t be walking anytime soon,” Julia laughed and Merle looked worried.

“Okay, that’s all find and dandy.” Taako pulled his glaive pointing it at the only stranger in the room. “Someone wanna tell me who tall dark and handsome is?” He reached into his backpack pulling out a black cord. “No? Sweet.” He turned to the man. “Hey thug what’s your name?” He grinned evilly holding out the cord. “Cause I’m about to tentacle your dick.” 

Kravitz was embarrassed by how aroused he was by this. 

“Mr. Taako sir no!” Angus protested shoving away from Magnus, “this is Kravitz he’s nice!” 

“Aww, so no tentacles?” Taako pouted.

“No sir!” Angus insisted grabbing Taako’s hand. 

“HEY!” Someone shouted and Julia let out a shout of pain as Merle jumped.

“Hey be careful!” Magnus protested holding Julia’s hand. 

“Sorry,” Merle grumbled. 

“Who the fuck broke down our- TAAKO!!!” Taako swung his glaive pointing it at the orcish woman and her Dragonborn girlfriend.

“Killian? Carey? You guys are alive?” Taako dropped his glaive shocked. “What the fuck guys!” 

“Yeah, no thanks to you dude. We woke up and the whole place was on lockdown. Took us a full week to figure out how to get hodgepodge to chill out” Killian gestured her crossbow at Taako casually. There was a blur of blue as Carey sprinted past them. 

“Magnus!” Carey shouted and Magnus turned just in time for the small dragon born to punch him in the fucking face. “I thought you were dead ASSHOLE!” Julia let out a pained cackle at her husbands baffled face. Carey blinked and stared down at Julia. 

“You must be the wife he won’t shut up about.” She held down a hand and Julia moved to shake it. 

“Nice to meet you I’m Juli- AH” She let out a scream of pain and ended up squeezing Carey’s hand instead of shaking it. “MOTHER FUCK” She released Carey’s hand leaning forward and gripping her leg just above her knee “MERLE WHAT THE HELL?” Magnus nervously held her and Julia waved him away. “Go with Ango. I’ll be fine.” She muttered through grunted teeth. 

“Where am I going?” Angus blinked staring owlishly at Julia. 

“AH- SHIT” Julia covered her head with her hands pulling at her hair. “You guys came here for that stone right?” She glanced up at Taako who was staring at her in shock. How did  _ she _ know about that. “Go get it.” 

“We can stay here and keep watch.” Killian offered, “We haven’t been able to get into the lab any further than this.” 

“Take angus with yo-AH FUCK MERLE COME ON!” Julia snapped

“I’M DOING MY BEST WITH WHAT I HAVE!” Merle retorted. 

“I’m not leaving.” Magnus determined holding Julia’s hand. “I just got you back-”

“Taako.” Julia glanced up at the elf ignoring her husband, “Please.” She begged, her voice strained from the pain. Taako sighed sympathetically, he of all people understood. She didn’t want Magnus and Angus to see her in this much pain. 

“Come on big guy.” Taako took Magnus by the shirt. “I need someone to watch my back and tall dark and handsome is too fucking distracting for that shit.” Kravitz blushed furiously as Angus took his hand following Taako and Magnus down the hall. 

“What are you doing here sir?” Angus inquired 

“It’s my department” Taako responded shrugging

“Yes. but why’d you come back here?” Kravitz pressed and Taako flashed him a smile 

“We’re working on a cure, and trust me TDH, it’s gonna work. But cha’boy needs his fancy ass rock first” He continued marching forward. 

“TDH?” Kravitz muttered confused and Taako cackled. 

“Hodge podge.” Taako stood in front of the metal sparking door holding Magnus’s wrist. 

“Hello, sir. Your security question is: Who do you trust??” 

“Nothing and No one.” Taako replied,  _ especially now _ , he thought to himself. “It’s a big ol void of mistrust.” Kravitz raised an eyebrow at this.  

“Correct!” The door slid open.  

“That was rude.” Magnus mumbled. 

“I set that up after Springs.” Taako replied rolling his eyes. 

“Oh.” Magnus was suddenly embarrassed, “Sorry.” 

“ ‘s no big deal” Taako muttered leading him into his lab. “Stay here.” He ordered before walking into another hall. There was the sound of a door opening and Magnus could see him through a glass window as the lights went up in a large chamber.  Taako walked over to a stand with a glass box over it, stop suddenly, put his hands in his hair, and go full on panic. 

“TAako!” Magnus called worriedly as Taako fell to his knees curling up. The lights turned off and he couldn’t see anything anymore. He moved forward and- Kravitz already beat him to it rushing to the now closed door. 

“Your security question is-”

“Emergency override: Seven birds” Kravitz snapped in elvish and the door slid open. “Taako?” Kravitz stepped into the chamber and there was a slight hiccup as the door slid shut, much to Magnus’s distress. 

“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” someone was muttering right infront of him. “Now what? You’ve just doomed the whole human race, what do you do now? Good fucking job you fucked upyoufuckedupyoufuckedupyoufuck-” 

“Taako.” Kravitz placed a hand on Taako’s shoulder and the elf sat up with a yelp. “It’s okay it’s just me.” 

“You’re awfully nosy tdh,” Taako muttered wiping his face. 

“It’s Kravitz.” Kravitz pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket. “Are you alright?” 

“Oh yeah, ‘s no big deal you know the world is probably boned because I lost the most important thing to make the cure but hey! At least we have a fucking EYEPIECE!” Kravitz reached up and pulled out the oculus. 

“Do we need this for the cure?” 

“No.” Taako muttered and Kravitz immediately shattered it much to Taako’s surprise. He let out a shocked chuckle. “Holy shit Dude!” There was a banging on the door behind them and Kravitz laughed hearing Magnus’s muffled shouts of alarm. 

“ _ Is everything okay? TAAKO!!”  _  there was a zapping noise and Magnus shouted in pain. “ _ OW Hodgepodge!! _ ”

“Come on,” Kravitz helped Taako up to his feet. “As cute as you are I simply cannot stand for you to sit and cry." He squeezed Taako's hand before reaching over and opening the door.  "Your rock isn’t here, so let’s go find it.”


	6. Lucretia and Davenport

Lucretia woke up to a burning… Something, falling on her side. She let out a scream of pain and shoved it away but not before it had burned her skin. She grabbed her backpack, her stick and jumped to her feet. There was so much smoke, and fire and- There! The stairs hadn’t caught fire yet. She rushed to them and sprinted up the stairs coughing furiously as she searched for the fire exit. She spotted a window, but no fire exit.  _ IDIOT _ her brain screamed at her  _ YOU TRUSTED THEM. DID YOU LEARN NOTHING FROM LAST TIME? _

“Shut up” She grumbled to herself wrapping herself up in her jacket and sprinting out the window breaking through the glass. _ It’s only two stories, right? How bad can it _ \- she saw the concrete smash into her leg and- 

* * *

 

Lucretia sat up covering her mouth instinctively to muffle the scream of pain. That was only two days ago, she had made a stint from a box she had found in the alleyway but fuck that was painful. It took her a long moment to remember where she was. Even then she didn’t bring her hand down as she started crying with relief. Davenport was nowhere to be seen but she knew for a fact she had made it at the sight of Junior cuddled up against her legs. 

Lucretia glanced around and noticed the open first aid kit. There was an ice pack wrapped in a wet towel next to it. And her jacket was missing, someone had been treating her wounds, but the towel was still soaked. So she suspected whoever had been treating her wounds had only recently left, though for how long she couldn’t be sure. The claw attack from the zombie was well patched up, so time to get as much done herself as she could. She moved to remove her shirt and whimpered in pain so instead, she grabbed her knife from her bag and began to cut her shirt off. The wound reached from below her boob down to her waist and fuck- She let out a sob and put the knife handle into her mouth to muffle it as she continued to work.  She took the soaked towel and gently patted down the burned area crying furiously as she worked. She knew she had to get everything cleaned up before she could even think about wrapping it. 

* * *

 

Davenport was arguing with the two teenage hires,  Avi and Johann. 

“I don’t care how badly you wanna see her, she needs to rest! Just give me the fucking antibiotic cream!” Davenport ordered and Avi slowly held out the cream before pulling it back. 

“Dav- Please! We just want to see her!” 

“LATER!” Davenport snapped jumping up Avi’s long legs to grab the cream and kick the tall man to the floor. “Are you alright?” He asked standing on Avi’s chest. 

“Peachy.” Avi held a thumbs up. “Sorry for pushing it.” 

Davenport sighed sympathetically. 

“I know you’re worried but at least let me get her patched up before you come in trying to hug her to death okay?” Davenport stepped off of Avi and started walking back towards the room where Lucretia had been left. 

“Keep us updated okay Davenport?” Johann murmured and Davenport smiled at him. 

“Of course Johann.” He opened the door to Lucretia’s room and found her with her knife handle in her mouth, tears flowing down her face, and her shirt completely off.

“-Nightmare scenario, this is the nightmare scenario,” She muttered as she sloppily bandaged her side with her shaking hands. “Don’tscreamdon’tscreamdon’tscreamdon’tscream”

“LUCRETIA!” Davenport shouted and she chucked the roll of bandages at him instinctively. “You forgot the antibiotics.” Davenport caught the bandages with ease and rolled them back up as he walked to her side. He gently took the knife from her mouth and set it outside her reach. “It’s okay to ask for help... you know that right?” 

“Not really. Not anymore,” She didn’t make eye contact and his heart shattered. 

“Who-” 

“Dunno,” Lucretia murmured, “But after getting robbed, and then left in a burning building it’s kinda hard to-  _ shit _ .” She let out a harsh sob of pain as Davenport gently applied the cream. She reached down to smack him away from her side but he easily blocked it. Lucretia tensed realizing what she did and pulled her arms away from him obviously resisting the urge to smack him again. 

“Sorry.” Davenport grimaced sympathetically, “I know this stings.” He wanted to keep her talking “Someone stole from you?” 

“They stole my phone the first time.” Lucretia grunted through the pain as Davenport started wrapping it. 

“What did you do?”

“I- I didn’t know what  _ to _ do.” She reached up and bit her finger to keep from screaming. 

“Hey!” Davenport snapped and she flinched as he pulled it out of her mouth. “Don’t do that! I’ve got enough injuries to deal with I’m not patching up your fingers too!” He gently tied the knot around her side and smiled up at her. “All done”

“I’m sorry.” Lucretia whispered as davenport moved down to her leg, he untied the stint pulling the leg brace he had found earlier. 

“Hey Lucretia,” Davenport already felt the guilt climbing up on him as he began to adjust the wrapping on her leg. “What was Taako’s emergency override again?”

“Seven birds in- AHH-” She let out a  desperate scream of pain before slapping her hand over her mouth and sobbing as he quickly reapplied the wrapping on her leg and placed it in a leg brace he had dug out of the closet. By the time he finished, she had stopped screaming but she just lay on the ground sobbing harshly. Davenport sighed sympathetically. 

“Sorry.” He rubbed her arm sympathetically. 

“It just hurts.” She sobbed shaking her head holding her arms over her eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

“Is there anything else I can help with?” Davenport inquired and Lucretia peeked out at him. “Nothing else hurts?” he asked pointing to the leg and her stomach. 

“No.” She murmured sitting up, “But can I-” she hesitated “Could you-” her lip started quivering. “Can I have a hug?” She held her arms open and Davenport smiled gently. 

“Of course.” He gently pulled her into a hug careful to avoid touching her injuries. He held her as she started sobbing silently and made a silent promise to track down whoever dared to make her question who she could trust. Whoever did this to her? He was going to give them hell.  

“Think we can go in?” 

“Avi he said no.” Lucretia released Davenport to look up at the door. 

“Who-” she glanced at Davenport who sighed.

“Avi and Johann were here when we found the place. So. We just haven’t. Made. them. Leave?” 

“Well they practically live here already,” Lucretia barely cracked a smile.  _ Barely _ . “Can they- I mean Can I-?” She frowned timidly. 

“After  _ AVI brings you one of MAGNUS’S t-shirts!”  _  Davenport shouted at the door. 

“ON IT BOSS!” Avi shouted through the door and Lucretia laughed. She paused wincing briefly, a sign that did not fall blankly on Davenport. 

“Luc-” Lucretia held up a hand taking slow deep breaths and coughing harshly immediately afterwards. 

“Broke my ribs fighting with a pair of… violent… twins over  food.” She explained, “I lost that fight obviously, but,” She groaned leaning backwards. “I’m fine now.” 

“You are everything but fine. You know that right?” Davenport protested reaching forward but she smacked the air in front of his hands. 

“I’ll be okay.” She promised, “I mean they could have stabbed me.” 

“That does not make me feel better.” Davenport decided and Lucretia laughed again before stopping. 

“Ow.” She said flatly, “Where are the others?” 

“Taako, Magnus and Merle are headed to the stone, Barry and Lup finished destroying the glove like an hour ago and should be here by morning.” Davenport repeated almost by memory at this point with the way Avi and Johann kept asking. “I don’t know how you handle those two.” He muttered and Lucretia raised an eyebrow.

“Who? Avi and Johann?” She paused, “I’ve never had any issue with them.” 

“They’re almost worse than you guys when you first started!” Davenport protested and Lucretia sat up leaning against the wall for support. Before she could respond, Avi walked in his eyes partially covered as he held out one of Magnus’s much larger shirts. Davenport helped Lucretia put it on before taking a step back so the boys could sit by her. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Avi cried, “we thought you were dead!”

“I didn’t.” Johann murmured and Lucretia cracked a smile. 

“Of course not Johann. You probably thought I died right away.” She raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Actually Johann insisted that you were still alive.” Avi pointed out. “Wouldn’t shut up about it.” Lucretia stared in shock at Johann. 

“You’re too smart to die like that.” Johann muttered his ears turning pink. There was a beat of silence before the questions started. 

“How did you last this long!?” 

“How did you know where we were?”

“How did you miss us looking for you!?”

“How’d you get that nasty burn!?” 

“Where’s your bag, this is definitely not your bag-“

“Okay, that’s enough!” Davenport snapped. “She needs to rest. Not be interrogated.”

“It’s Okay Davenport. I’ve been alone for almost a month. It’s nice to hear other people.” Lucretia placed a hand on her mentors shoulder before beginning to answer questions. “Very carefully, I didn’t I came here to make sure fisher and Junior were okay, I have no idea probably the same way you missed me, a building fell on me, and my bag got stolen.” 

“This clears up nothing,” Avi decided looking at Johann. 

“Do you know how to cure everyone?” Johann asked and Lucretia frowned confused and she glanced at Davenport. 

“Uh. Okay, I think I have some explaining to do to Lucretia. Shoo, I’ll let you talk to her again tomorrow!” He picked up Junior and handed them to Johann. “Here take them with you.” Davenport waited until the boys had shut the door behind them before turning to Lucretia.

 

“There's something you should know about the zombies.” 


	7. Blupjeans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A GREMLIN!

Lup fiddled with the lock on the door while Barry stayed on watch. 

“So what do you think will be in this pantry?” Lup inquired the lock clicking as she slowly unlocked it. 

“Knowing the other apartments we stayed in? Empty. Or close to.” Barry was on edge, this apartment complex was too empty. Why didn’t the zombies come here? 

“Well duh, but what do you  _ want _ to be here? Who knows maybe we’ll get lucky and get an apartment that hasn’t been raided yet.” The lock clicked and the door swung open. “The lock certainly gives me hope.”

“I want hamburgers,” Barry muttered.

“My recipe or Taako's?” Lup glanced back at him as they walked inside. 

“My Mom’s,” Barry said instead and Lup skidded to a stop. Barry shook his head, “sorry that was dumb I shouldn’t have said anything. Your recipe of course babe.” 

“Barry-“ Lup tensed hearing the sound of a gun cock. “GET DOWN!” She shouted flipping her umbrella open and using it as a makeshift shield as the shotgun pellets smashed into it and ricocheted all over the room. There was a cry of pain and Lup hesitated but glanced over the umbrella slowly. Sitting on the floor holding her now bleeding arm was a little girl with her Afro surrounding her head like a halo. 

“Holy fuck it’s a fucking gremlin.” She muttered slowly shutting the door to the apartment behind them.

“Angus gremlin or Mookie gremlin,” Barry whispered Lup still holding him down.

“Somewhere in the middle, she's not much younger than Angus tho-“ a small bird flew straight into Lup’s hair and Lup let out a shout of alarm falling backward. There was a brief moment of chaos before the bird finally detangled itself from Lup’s hair and started pecking furiously. Barry laughed and reached for it. Only to have it jump up and fly into a separate room in the apartment.

“Lup.” Barry glanced over the umbrella, “gremlin is gone.”

“What!?” Lup sat up, determined to find her gremlin. “Where’d she go?” 

There was the sound of a slamming door and she stood up, leaving the umbrella with Barry, and ran over to the room where the bird had taken off too. The door had been shut and firmly locked. “Shit!” She cursed reaching into her pockets trying to find her lockpicks. 

“What are we doing?” Barry inquired and Lup just about smacked him for sneaking up on her. Instead, she laughed and took her umbrella from him. 

“She was bleeding,” Lup whispered in reply still unable to find her lockpicks. Barry grabbed his girlfriend's arm and shook his head. 

“She’s a little kid in the middle of the apocalypse. She’s probably scared out of her mind already.” Lup paused thoughtfully before knocking on the door. 

“Hey sweetie, it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you.” Lup took a seat outside the doorway. “My name is Lup Taaco, and this is my boyfriend Barry.” There was a thud followed by a soft whimper from inside the room and Lup had to resist the urge to run in there and help her. 

“We’re only here to look for a place to hide from the zombies. But it looks like you beat us to this place.” Lup called in slowly getting frustrated, Barry placed a kiss on her hand and Lup sighed. “Do you think you’d be okay if we stayed here with you? Just for tonight?” There was a beat of silence and Lup paused unsure how to continue. 

“Lup makes a mean Mac and cheese!” Barry tried Lup smacked him 

“We don’t even know if they have mac and cheese ingredients here!” She hissed at him.

“It was worth a shot!” Barry protested hissing back. Suddenly the door clicked and the little girl peeked out. 

“You really won’t hurt me?” She asked and Lup sighed with relief. 

“No sweetie. I promise we only wanted a safe place to stay for the night.” The door crept open a bit more. 

“We don’t have enough food for Mac and cheese…” she murmured and Lup grinned. 

“Fair enough sweetie. But tell you what. You let Barry patch you up, and I’ll make something even  _ better _ than Mac and cheese.” 

“Even better?” She looked shocked. 

“So much better!” Lup held her arms out. “But first you gotta tell us your name.” 

“Oh.” The little girl blinked and shyly stepped out of the room. 

“My name is June, and this is Roswell.” She gestured to the small bird on her shoulder. 

“Hi June, I’m Barry. And you already know Lup. Can you tell me where your first aid kit is?” Barry crouched down to her height as Lup walked into the kitchen. 

“Mhmm. Ren puts it up high so I can’t reach” she leads Barry into the bathroom and points up. “I keep trying to tell her I’m not a baby but she won’t listen.”

“Well, you did shoot at us.” Barry laughed standing on his tiptoes to reach above the bathroom cabinets to pull down the kit.

“HALELUYA THEY HAVE CREAM OF MUSHROOM.” Lup cheered from the kitchen and Barry laughed at June’s shocked face. 

“Don’t worry, she’s just planning something.” He promised, leading her out into the kitchen.

“stuffing stuffing stuffing- AHAHA!!” Lup pounced with delight. 

“What are you making?” June asked letting Barry lift her up to the counter. Roswell pecked at him a little defensively but Barry ignored him with ease. 

“It’s…” Lup paused, “I never named it. It’s like a casserole.” She smiled at June tossing the frozen chicken on the counter. “How long have you been living here honey?”

“Huh?” Barry glanced up and Lup cackled. 

“Not you bear.” 

“Oh.” Barry went back to cleaning June’s wound.

“Ow,” June said monotone before glancing at Lup. 

“I’ve been living here since the zombies started. Miss Ren came and saved me and has been having me live here since.” 

“Do you have a skillet here?” Lup asked digging through the cabinets. 

“Top cabinet,” June replied, “OW!” She screeched at Barry.

“Sorry. I’ve only taken basic first aid.” Barry took a step back and wiped his hands off. “You didn’t get hit anywhere else did you?” 

“No.” June whimpered and Barry eyed her. 

“Are you just saying that so it won’t hurt you anymore?”

“Maybe,” June responded and Lup giggled with delight as she started chopping the chicken into small squares. 

“I fucking love this kid. June you’re a fucking delight!” Lup smiled at her and June smiled back.

“Where else did you get hit?” Barry asked and June gently lifted her red sundress up and showed Barry the remaining wounds. 

“Oh well fuck,” Barry muttered glancing over at Lup who had finished with the chicken and had moved on to mixing the other ingredients in the slow cooker. June had three pellet entry wounds on her legs. They didn’t look serious and Barry suspected he could get them out with ease. It was the one entry wound on June’s left hip that made him worry. 

“Am I gonna die?” June whimpered and Lup dropped her spoon and rushed to her side. 

“No, no, no. Of course not sweetie. Barry is gonna call a friend while I get you all patched up so you stop bleeding.” Barry held eye contact with Lup who nodded at the walkie-talkie on the counter. 

“Hey THB?” Barry said into the talkie, taking a step out of the room leaving Lup and June alone. 

“Okay I’m gonna put this here” Lup held gauze to the one on June’s hip. “Can you hold that for me?”

“Mhmm,” June nodded. 

“Okay not gonna lie,” Lup took a seat in front of June, “this is gonna hurt but if I can get the rest of these out it’s gonna be better for you in the long run.”

“Okay,” June’s voice cracked already starting to cry. 

“You wanna know what I did when the doctors did things that hurt me?” Lup smiled up at her.

“What?” June blinked tearfully,

“I squeezed something.” Lup reached into her bag and pulled out the small mongoose stuffed animal. She and Taako had found it at the zoo during the brief time with their aunt and had each gotten one to sleep with. Now it was more of an anxiety/comfort thing. 

“This is Taako.” Lup smiled knowing full well her brother had the same stuffed animal in his pack, except he called it ‘Lup’ “He’s an asshole but if you squeeze him hard enough he’ll take some of your pain away.” June stared in awe as Lup handed it to her. “Hold him tight okay?” Lup squeezes June’s hands tightly before picking up the tweezers and starting.  

 

“Yeah, Merle’s not available.” Taako’s voice echoed through the speaker. “My guess? Just make sure she ain’t bleeding. And if she almost dies start cpr and call us again.” The talkie squealed as Taakos voice clicked out. Barry glanced helplessly at Lup. Lup did not return the glance and was focused too hard on June’s legs. 

“You’re doing great,” She murmured as June squeezed a familiar stuffed animal. Barry let out a soft chuckle, he was surprised Lup still even had that. “There.” There was a clink as the pellet was dropped on the counter, a safe distance from the food, Barry noted. “Okay I have one more and then I’ll start putting the bandaids on okay?” 

“Mhmm,” June nodded still holding the Mongoose, her eyes squeezed shut. 

“Barry babe, if you’re finished can you start cooking the chicken?”  Lup didn’t look up from Junes leg. Barry nodded walking over to the skillet as June let out a pained whimper and Lup made a noise of sympathy. “I’ve almost got it, sweetheart. Just hold on.” Barry barely managed to get the pan over the fire before there was a clink. “There!” Lup glanced up at June, “All done! And you did so wonderfully sweetie I’m so proud of you!” June threw her arms around Lup’s neck hugging the girl tightly. Lup’s ears perked up in shock at this but she soon returned the gesture. 

“Okay! Now let’s get you cleaned up!” 

“Uh. I’ll do that.” Barry offered the skillet out and Lup cackled, “Let me live Lup. You know I’m a rotten cook!” 

“Okay, Sweetie? Bear is gonna put the bandaids on. Sound good?” 

“Can the food just wait?” June mumbled embarrassed and Lup glanced up at Barry a smug grin on her face. 

“Sure thing,” Lup rubbed her head and started to apply gauze to the wounds. “You said a Ren brought you here? Where’s she?” 

“Uh. Her and her friends went out to get gas for the generator. And also more food.”  June shifted already started to feel better. 

“Okay. I need one of the big band-aids for her waist bear” Lup held her hand out finishing June up. Barry placed the large band-aid in Lup’s hand and watched his girlfriend firmly press the adhesive to the girls skin and lower the skirt of the dress. “There!” Lup sat her chin on June’s knees. “Now you mentioned a Generator. I don’t suppose this Generator works?” 

“Yeah!” June jumped down from the counter, “I don’t know how to turn it on though.” She ran back into the room she had been hiding in and Lup slowly followed glancing over at Barry curiously. 

 

The generator had just enough gas for them to cook the food thankfully. Because Lup’s tiny portable grill was gonna run out of batteries long before it fully sauteed the chicken.  She took the, now fully cooked chicken and threw it in the slow cooker mixing up all the ingredients as it heated. 

“And now we wait!” She tapped June’s nose smiling brightly. 

“Can I taste it?” 

“Probably not the best idea sweetie. I want to see your face when it’s all done.” She paused, placing the cover on the slow cooker.  “What other food do you have in here?” She mused looking in the pantry. “Ooh. I can cut up some fruit!” She glanced back at June from between her legs, “What’s your favorite sweetheart?” June giggled at Lup’s pose. 

“I like apple slices and peanut butter,” June offered and Barry gasped. 

“That’s my favorite too!” He held out his hands catching the peanut butter jar that Lup chucked at him. He reached into the cabinet and pulled out a large knife as Lup walked out of the pantry three apples in tow. Just then the door burst open and a young drow woman sprinted inside

“June! I’m so sorry I seen the shotgun imprints in the hall- I’m so sorry I knew I should have just taken you-” The woman made eye contact with Barry who suddenly realized how it probably looked with him holding a large knife next to June. 

“No- Wait-” He tried to explain The woman lifted up her pistol and growled. 

“Get. The  _ fuck _ away from her.” She snarled before pulling the trigger. 


	8. The inbetweens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren and June have been surviving for a month. But they haven't been alone.

Ren was a little more than salty about the apocalypse. It was her 99th birthday, though that wasn’t what she was upset about when she ran up the stairs of the apartment complex. “Please be okay, please be-” there was a scream and Ren started running faster. She kicked down the door to the Refuge’s complex and found June staring in terror at her father. Oh- Oh god June no. 

“June!” Ren held out her hands through the open door and June did a double take before sprinting across the room into Ren’s hands. 

“Okay, sweetie? Wait here and hold this.” Ren placed her shotgun in June’s hands before opening the door to the apartment complex pistol at the ready. “Jack. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” Ren couldn’t stop crying. “I’ll protect her I promise. I’ll make sure she gets through this.” Ren pulled the trigger. 

She walked outside finding June holding the Shotgun sobbing just as hard as Ren was. 

“I’m sorry June,” Ren whispered taking the shotgun from June before taking her hand. “We’re going to be okay alright?” She promised. “My apartment is just a few blocks down. We can fortify it and we should be safe there. We can wait this out.” Ren gripped her new necklace. A simple chain with a pendant that was sort of like a locket but… with more volume. 

Ren helped June past the zombies with ease. They were attracted to noise, so most of them were easy to distract with a chucked rock. The few that weren’t? Well, Ren didn’t buy a silencer for her pistol for nothing. She was a little disappointed to find her favorite general store demolished by an upturned pickup truck. Though she was absolutely shocked when June blew their cover to rush over to the pickup truck. She grabbed a rock and started smashing on the window. 

“June!” Ren hissed taking out the few zombies that noticed the young girl sprinting across the street. 

“There’s someone inside!” June protested not bothering to explain more. Ren glanced over at the setting sun. She wanted to get June inside before dark. It would be harder to aim in the dark. June, however, wasn’t budging and just kept smashing on the window. Ren blinked shocked at the sight of two curled up figures in the back seat of the truck. They looked like they crawled back there and had passed out in each other's grasp. 

“Fuck me.” Ren rolled her eyes grabbing June to pull her away from the window as she pointed her pistol and fired at it. 

 

“Hi, so sorry, I promise you can faint later!” Ren shouted at their rescuees. “ My apartment’s just up there come on!” the tall skinny girl with dark hair grabbed the rope from the bed of the truck and followed Ren holding the short girl's hand as they ran. 

“What’s your name?” The short girl demanded brushing her auburn hair back. 

“I’m June!” June introduced, “This is Ren!” 

“My name’s Hurley.” The short girl replied, “This is Sloane, I thought we were going to die back there.” 

“Would have if I waited any longer!” Ren held open the door to her apartment complex. Sloane glanced back at her now completely buried truck. 

“Yup.” Sloane agreed as Ren shot another oncoming zombie. 

“Sorry! Please stop staring and do more running!” Ren pushed Sloane inside. “Don’t take the elevator!” She grabbed the back of Hurley’s shirt and sprinted up the stairs. “Apartments on the fourth floor. It sucks I know but-” The elevator doors slid open revealing nothing but a straight drop. “The elevator already snapped.” 

“Holy shit.” Hurley blinked before jumping up the stairs with surprising speed. 

“Hey!” Sloane protested running after her, “Hurles be careful!” 

“June,” Ren crouched so June could get a piggyback ride, which the small girl gladly accepted. 

 

“What are we gonna do now?” June muttered as Ren opened the door to her apartment for the two rescuees and June. 

“Now?” Ren paused thoughtfully. “I’m not sure.” She shrugged, 

“Oh, that’s easy.” Hurley playfully tapped June’s nose. “Now we take a nap! It’s been a long day and we can worry about zombies tomorrow!” 

“But-” June protested, “Won’t the zombies come and get us?” 

“No.” Ren smiled down at her. “My apartment is perfectly safe.” 

 

Once June was asleep Ren pulled out her pistol and glanced at Hurley and Sloane. Sloane gripped Hurley’s hand and made a defensive pose until Ren set the pistol on the table casually. 

“I’m Ren.” She offered out her hand. “I may be older than both of you combined, but I’m still far too young to be dealing with this on my own.” Sloane and Hurley stared at her confused, “Truce?” Hurley and Sloane smiled brightly realizing the offer. 

“Of course!” Hurley shook Ren’s hand eagerly, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ren!” Sloane eyed the drow her dark brown skin blending her into the darkness of the night. Ren kept her hand outstretched and Sloane sighed taking it. 

 

“Truce” 

* * *

 

**_Once Month Later_ **

* * *

 

Ren was a little more than upset when she realized her apartment had been broken into. She was beyond anxious when she saw the shotgun pellets in the wall and in her door. She was beyond angry when she opened the door to find a strange man standing over June with one of her kitchen knives. 

She didn’t even hesitate to shoot him. But she did end up leaving a bullet in her ceiling when Hurley and Sloane shoved her arm upward to avoid shooting the man. 

“Hurley!? Sloane!?” The woman took a step out of the pantry and- 

“Oh my god.” Ren put her gun in her holster in horror “You’re a Taaco.” She wanted to throw up, she started falling to her knees“Oh my god I’m gonna- Yeah Hurles? Sloane? I’m tapping out.” Ren tapped Sloane’s shoulder and the tall girl barely managed to swoop in as Ren clocked out. 

“Shit.” Hurley glanced back at Ren. “Is she okay?” 

“She’d be more okay if she decided to buckle up.” Sloane decided, “Grab the first aid kit I gotta get the glass out of her cuts.” 

“We’ve got it right here,” Lup handed the box to June who jumped down from her seat and ran to Ren’s side as Sloane shut the door and set Ren on the ground. 

“Is she okay?” June repeated Hurley’s question. 

“She’s going to be fine.” Sloane promised, “She just got a little beat up when we tangled with a zombie hoard.” 

“Oh.” June sounded disappointed. 

“How are you guys even alive?” Barry said walking to sit beside June and do his best to help. 

“Oh, the boys tell you we were dead or something?” Sloane laughed, “I thought we were dead too.” 

“We broke them out of their truck,” June said proudly. 

“And just in time too!” Hurley tapped June’s nose. 

 

By the time they finished patching Ren up, Lup had finished dinner and somehow had enough for everyone, even enough set aside for Ren whenever she woke up. 

“Man Taako’s gonna be ecstatic to know you’re alive.” Lup smiled at Hurley who tensed and sat her fork down. 

“Lup. You guys can’t come out to this side of town.” 

“Uh... Why? We’re here right now??” Lup frowned confused, 

“No I mean we can get you out after this but Lup.” Hurley shook her head, “The wonder twins know about you.” 

 

“And they want you dead.” 


	9. Kravitz, Julia, Angus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merle loses his arm and Kravitz has a realization.

“So any ideas where to look for the rock?” Kravitz asked Taako, watching Magnus carry his wife piggyback style. Angus walked just behind his adoptive parents, while Merle walked behind the group. 

“Nope,” Taako said, popping the ‘p’. He seemed to be doing much better, had this air of confidence. His ears flicked back and forth as they walked and Kravitz had the suspicion that was a nervous tick. “Cha’boy’s gonna go back, let Cap’n’port know we destroyed the oculus. And go from there.” He started undoing his braid, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen this highly dangerous death rock have you?” Kravitz skidded to a stop and cocked his head at Taako. 

“Death rock?” He pronounced the words carefully, unsure if he heard Taako correctly. 

“Well yeah. If you touch it you basically decompose-” He paused exasperated, “You seen Lara Croft?” 

“Uh. Yeah?” Kravitz paused dread creeping up his voice. 

“It’s like that plague shit right at the end.” 

“Oh.” Kravitz placed a hand on his forehead. He knew exactly where it was. “Oh fuck.” 

“Yo. Goth boy?” Taako turned to Kravitz confused- “FUCK Merle LOOK OUT!” Kravitz turned in horror to find Merle holding a zombie’s head away from himself struggling already on the floor. 

“WORKING ON IT!” Merle shouted right before his and slipped right into the zombie's mouth. 

“Merle!” Magnus set Julia down and started rushing forward. Magnus barely made it two steps before a loud boom echoed through the clearing and the top half of the zombie’s head was just gone. Magnus stared in shock at his son holding the gun. 

“YOU GAVE HIM A GUN!?” He demanded at his wife. 

“Magnus Sir! You need to remove his arm above where the infection is. NOW!” Angus snapped at his adoptive father and Magnus shook his head.

“We’re not done talking about this.” 

“WAIT WHAt!?” Merle blinked the dark sickness crawling up his arm. “No. Wait- You’re chopping my damn arm off?!?” 

“Either arm goes or Merle goes!” Taako tells him holding Merle’s hand out for Magnus who already was swinging. Kravitz covered Angus’s eyes carefully 

There was a disgusting noise that Kravitz,  _ hated _ , he  _ hated  _ that they didn’t have better equipment or more time for a proper amputation. He  _ hated _ that he, of  _ all people _ , was the most qualified in this situation. He rushed forward taking off his jacket and using it to stem the bleeding on Merle’s newly amputated arm. 

“Okay, Taako give me that cord you were threatening me with earlier.” Kravitz snapped, “Angus stay with your mom and make sure no more zombies get nearby.” He took the cord from the absolutely shocked elf. “Merle Stay awake. Merle!” 

“You chopped my damn arm off!” He was shouting at Magnus. Kravitz sighed at least he was awake. Not something that would last. 

“YOU WERE BECOMING A ZOMBIE!” 

“Magnus stop arguing with Merle and help your son.” Kravitz snapped tying the cord tightly just above the wound. He held his jacket firmly in place and looked around desperately.

“Taako is there a clinic or something nearby?” 

“Uh- How” Taako was still baffled. “Holy shit we actually cut his arm off.” Kravitz noticed Merle’s eyes rolling up into his head. 

“Nonononono. FUCK! Merle!”

"Oh well, that's difficult..." Taako said still in a daze. 

“Taako!” Kravitz snapped. 

“Uh, there’s a small clinic just a block ahead.” Taako blinked back into reality. 

“Great. Magnus. Get over here and carry Merle. Hold this here tightly.” Magnus blinked shocked. Kravitz felt his annoyance grow. “Magnus. I need you to  _ run  _ with me to this clinic.” 

“I’m not leaving my wif-” Magnus protested 

“NO SHUT UP.” Kravitz snapped cutting him off, “I’M A FUCKING DOCTOR, MD, AND EVERYTHING. AND IF YOU WANT TO SAVE YOUR FRIENDS LIFE YOU WILL DO AS I FUCKING SAY!” 

Magnus blinked shocked but nodded and took the dwarf from Kravitz who turned to Taako. 

“YOU!” Kravitz snapped, “I DON’T CARE HOW FUCKING ATTRACTIVE YOU ARE. YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD AND WATCH ANGUS AND JULIA” He picked up Taako’s Glaive and placed it in his hands. “GET THEM SAFELY TO THE CLINIC. PREFERABLY WITHOUT LIMB REMOVAL.” He bolted past Magnus slicing past Zombies to get into the clinic. Once the door had been shut behind Magnus Kravitz ran into the back room and started digging through the supplies. Most of the useful stuff had been raided but if this was like any of the clinics back at his hometown the good stuff would be hidden… AHA! 

“Hold him down,” Kravitz ordered. “This might hurt.” 

“Magnus.” Merle groaned, “I don’t wanna die.”

“You won’t. Kravitz is gonna fix you right up.” 

“Oh…” Merle paused. “Magnus?” 

“Yeah, Merle?”

“I don’t wanna be a one-armed dwarf.” 

“You won’t. I’m gonna make you a nice prosthetic.” Magnus grinned at his friend. 

“Make it look cool?” Merle requested. 

“The coolest,” Magnus promised.

* * *

 

“YOU HAVE A FUCKING GUN??” Taako shouted at Angus before turning to Julia. “YOU GAVE THE GREMLIN A GUN!” There was a pause and Julia gave a half-hearted smile. 

“Uh. Yes?” 

“About damn ti-“ a building exploded behind them and Taako’s ears flicked up curiously. “What the-“

“GO GO GO GO!” Someone was shouting and Taako yelped with surprise as Carey sprinted in from seemingly out of nowhere, grabbed Angus like a sack of potatoes, and took off running. Before Taako could even complain Killian ran in and scooped up Julia who let out a laugh from surprise. 

“Taako we gotta move!” Killian ordered and Taako blinked shocked. 

“You said you wanted to stay behind asshat!” Taako complained running after Killian. 

“I shot hodgepodge and he started a self-destruct sequence.” Killian shrugged, “where's the others?” 

“Redcheek clinic. Merle got his arm chopped off,” Taako tugged Killian into the building where Carey and Angus were waiting patiently. 

“So there’s a lot of shouting going on inside.” Carey paused, “is everyone okay?”

“Define Okay,” Taako asked walking inside only to have a vase smash into the wall beside the door. 

“SMALL CHILD ALERT!” Magnus shouted as a small figure with long curly auburn hair darted around the room. Taako blinked and stuck out his glaive with surprising accuracy, the figure fell flat on her face. 

“Ow!” She complained pushing herself to her feet. “What the hell!” 

“We should be “what the hell”-ing you!” Magnus protested. 

“This is my fucking clinic!” The girl snapped, “you can fuck off!” 

“Yo are these swords?” Taako completely ignored the girl’s personal space and grabbed her false leg. “This is impressive as shit girlie!” 

“It’s  _ Noelle. _ ” The girl kicked him away, “and I’m 25! I’m hardly a child!” 

“Still impressive,” Taako shrugged. 

“Magnus I need those bandages!” Someone shouted from another room. Noelle perked up at this. 

“You brought injured here…” she realized. “Hold on!!” She shouted diving for the wall, she slid a chunk of it to the side and pulled out a red bag with a big white cross on it. 

Kravitz blinked in shock as a complete stranger ran in and started doing a basic break down. 

“My name is Noelle Redcheek, I’m a registered PA. I can help.”

“Kravitz Mccallister.” Kravitz blinked shocked his hands covered in blood from Merle’s wound. “Please do.” 


	10. THB

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kravitz is a disaster gay.

Killian and Carey offered to take the first watch. Magnus was passed out on the floor with his arms curled around his wife and his son. Merle was asleep on one of them check-up beds with the new girl (uhhh Noelle? Taako was pretty sure that’s what she had said her name was.), sleeping nearby in case he needed her. Dr. Gothboy was… Somewhere? Taako wasn’t sure he had enough energy to care. He was too busy trying to fight his way out of an anxiety attack. Once Killian and Carey had gotten set up on watch Taako found a room in the clinic, shut the door, and fell to the floor. The darkness of the room was both suffocating and relieving. He tugged on his long braid the room seemingly taking his breath from him faster than he could get it back. He messed up, he should have implemented a better security program. He should have taken the rock with him when he left. He should- he should- this is JUST like springs. If a civilian has the rock- oh god-. Taako grabbed the trash bin and emptied his stomach into it. He pushed his hair back pulling his knees to his chest taking deep breaths. Suddenly there was knock on the door and Taako quickly shoved anything with emotions into the pit of his stomach. He wiped his face carefully

“Taako?” Oh fuck, it was the cute boy. “Taako can I come in?” 

“Uh yeah sure homeboy, just gimme a second.” Taako twisted his braid up into a bun and opened the door. “Sup m dude?” Kravitz studied Taako for a moment, Taako could see the gears turning in his head and he hoped to god he wouldn’t say anything about his obviously red eyes. Kravitz opened his mouth before closing it and sighing. 

“Alright come on.” Kravitz held his hand out to Taako, “I’m not letting you sulk.” Taako stared blankly and Kravitz slowly took his hand. “Is this alright?” Kravitz asked squeezing Taako's hand. 

“Oh.” Taako blinked, “Yeah… yeah, it’s...nice.” 

“Oh… well. Good!” Kravitz smiled gently. “Let’s go.” 

“Wait where are we going?” Taako blinked and Kravitz paused.

“Raiding.” Kravitz decides and Taako looks to Killian and Carey for help. 

Instead, they simply give him a thumbs up and whisper-shout, ”have fun!!!”

Kravitz led him down the street carefully still holding his hand and Taako was slowly getting nervous. Eventually, Kravitz pulled him inside a large building that Taako was pretty sure he remembered being a pottery place. Kravitz released Taako's hand and grabbed his scythe moving to check for zombies. Taako grabbed Kravitz’s Jacket and the extremely handsome man turned back to him. 

“Listen. Dr. Gothboy?” Taako mumbled “Not that you aren’t hot as fuck,” Kravitz blushes at this, “but cha’boy’s a little fuckin drained after today. Not really in the mood for a raid. Yanno?” Kravitz blinks shocked.   
“Oh, Taako I’m not actually taking you digging through the ruins of the city. I just said that so- well I mean I-“ Kravitz lowered his scythe and brought his hand up to his mouth thoughtfully. There was a long period of silence and Kravitz squinted frustratedly. “I wanted. To. Spend. Some… time? With you?” Taako blinked before letting out a laugh of disbelief. 

“Like a date?” Kravitz blushes more furiously, 

“Yes?” He murmurs gripping his scythe nervously. Taako stared in shock for a long period of time and Kravitz squirmed uncomfortably. “I’m sorry I know it’s the middle of the apocalypse and this is probably really inappropriate I just- I mean you’re really fucking attractive and-“

“Okay.” Taako heard himself say and Kravitz stopped. 

“Seriously?” 

“Hell yeah man. I mean like I said, you’re hot as fuck and honest to god. And yeah, middle of the apocalypse or not, you’re a fucking catch.” He looped his arm through Kravitz’s. Kravitz blinked and flushed before squeezing Taako's hand. 

“So uh. What are we doing here bone daddy?” Taako asked and Kravitz sputtered our a laugh. 

“Do you  _ ever _ plan on using my real name?” Taako paused tapping his chin thoughtfully.

“Nope. Sorry reaper man.” 

“I’m not- Taako where are you even  _ getting  _ these?”

“You got a scythe with a fucking skull on it!” Taako laughed standing on his tiptoes to tap the skull. “You’re running around with a goth outfit on and apparently are a doctor???” He folded his arms smugly. “You’re the fucking grim reaper m’dude” Kravitz stared blankly before laughing. 

“Well if I’m the reaper then you’ve been doing some dangerous shit.”

“I mean fair. But I’m always doing dangerous shit. Dangerous shit was literally my job description.” Taako shrugged leaning against a wooden counter.

“Why?” Kravitz frowned concerned “Taako if your job is so dangerous why would you stay?” Taako looked away picking up a broken piece of pottery. 

“Because… I’m afraid no one else would have me.” Kravitz was taken aback by the brutally honest response. “So Dr. Reaper.” Taako smiled, “what  _ are _ we doing here?” Kravitz got the hint, not a thing Taako wanted to talk about.

“My sister would take me in town to visit her girlfriend occasionally.” Kravitz explained, “and she always took her girlfriend here and let me kinda do my own thing so…” Kravitz gestured, “date.” 

“Your sister brought her girlfriend to a pottery place on dates?” 

“They like the drive,” Kravitz shrugged, “plus afterwards they go to the mechanic shop down the road.” Taako paused that sounded way too familiar.

“Wait is your sister fucking Sloane?”

“Uh…” Kravitz stared at him with an odd look “Yes?” Taako let out a loud bitter laugh, 

“Oh my god she wasn’t kidding when she said her family was gay as fuck!” His laughter stopped at the mental image of the truck being destroyed inside that building.

“Have you seen Sloane around?” Kravitz sounded hopeful and Taako pulled away. 

“Sorta. Uh. I was friends with Hurley. We were together when shit first started getting bad and- uh homeboy they didn’t make it.” 

“Oh.” Kravitz looked down. He reached out for Taakos hand. “It’s okay. You’re not breaking new information to me. I found their truck a few weeks back.” Taako still looked guilty.  “Hey.” Kravitz gently reaches for Taakos hand, “we can do something else.” 

“Hell Nah, I wanna make a fucking bowl!” Taako somehow did an absolutely 180 standing up. “Help me figure out how to-“ There was a loud growl from behind Taako and Kravitz suddenly swung his scythe at Taako. “Ah FUCK!” Taako yelped ducking and glancing up to see a zombie fall to the floor. Revealing about fifteen more crawling from the darkness

“Run?” Kravitz asks helping Taako up. Taako gripped Kravitz’s hand. 

“Oh, you know it!” Taako said running out the door hand in hand with Kravitz. 

“This is absolutely insane!” Kravitz shouted laughing 

“Shut up we gotta ditch them!” Taako cackled pulling Kravitz into an alleyway and pressing his back against the wall pulling Kravitz close. 

“Wha-“ Taako placed a finger over Kravitz’s lips and leaned over watching the hoard of zombies stumble past. 

“Sorry,” Taako whispered once they had left. “I stick out like a sore thumb in the dark” 

“Uh. Huh.” Kravitz blinked trying to reboot his brain. Taako snickered and squeezed Kravitz’s hand. 

“Come on reaper man let's get back to the others.” Taako led Kravitz to the edge of the alley, glanced back and forth to check for zombies before squeezing Kravitz’s hand and sprinting for the clinic. 

 

The two boys ran into the clinic Kravitz shutting the door and pulling Taako inside right before they both tripped and fell to the ground laughing like absolute idiots. 

“Guys!” Carey hissed, “they’re all sleeping!” Taako cocked his head to stare at the very smug looking Dragonborn who was exchanging money with Killian. 

“Oh, you assholes!” Taako pushed himself up and off of Kravitz. “You made a bet!” Carey stuck out her tongue at Taako. " _Without me!!_ " 

“Listen,” Killian shrugged, “money is worthless now.” She ripped the dollar bill Carey had handed her. “She bet that you guys would end up being too gay to notice the zombies.” Killian raised an eyebrow, “I simply bet that you guys would get together.” 

“Well, you guys were both right I suppose.” Kravitz rolled over and sat up rubbing his head. He looked at Taako nervously. “Right?” 

“Well I mean, they were certainly right about the zombies.” Taako shrugged pushing himself to his feet and Kravitz slouched looking like a broken puppy. Killian blinked shocked and Carey pumped her fist. Taako waited for a brief moment as Killian slowly pulled out her wallet and Carey pulled out her own. before reaching out taking the wallets and removing the money from both of them, pocketing the money, and walking over to a sad Kravitz. 

“Lesbians, this is my extremely hot boyfriend now.” Taako kissed Kravitz’s cheek before taking a seat on the absolutely shocked half elf’s lap. "You are not to interrupt my much-deserved cuddling. So fuck off your money is mine now" Taako noticed Angus staring at them squinting through the dark and lack of glasses. Taako held a finger up to his lips and pointed down. Angus smiled smugly and lay back down snuggling closer to his father. Kravitz lay back down on the ground an arm around Taako. 

“Is this okay?” Taako asked laying on Kravitz’s chest.

“Yeah…” Kravitz murmured drifting off. 

 

“It’s… nice.” 


	11. Lucretia and Davenport

“This is absolutely the nightmare scenario,” Lucretia grunted limping through her library. It was late, which meant that most of the group should be asleep. She grabbed a notebook, flipped through it and threw it on the ground. “No.” She grabbed the second book, “ _ no,”  _ she growled throwing it onto the ground. Reaching for a third book. “NO!” She smashed it on the ground. This repeated for several minutes until the door opened scaring the absolute shit out of Lucretia causing her to chuck the wrong notebook at the new person. 

“Well that could have ended badly,” Johann stared at the book that had smacked into the wall and fallen to the floor. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” 

“No. I should be finding the cure for this.” Lucretia corrected leaning on her staff as she grabbed another book. “No!” She chucked it into the wall. Johann walked over the pile of books on the floor. This was the most disrespect Lucretia had ever used against her books. 

“You don’t wanna go to bed and look in the morning?” He asked picking up a few of the books and setting them in a nice pile. 

“No!!” Lucretia snapped “This is My fault!” Lucretia sobbed covering her mouth to muffle the sound, “This was my fault!” Her arms trembled and she shook her head grabbing another book. 

“Lucretia, the only person to blame for this is John.” 

“I was the one who wrote down the rituals!” Lucretia snapped, “I was the one who let John look at my notes!  _ I was the one who permitted John to use all the relics! _ ” Lucretia threw the book in her hand at the wall in frustration. At this point, she was just covering the floor with books. “It’s MY fault this happened. and I’m not going to sleep until I fix this.” Johann sighed setting a book on another pile. 

“Uh… Pardon my interruption Madam director.” Johann murmured, “But I have to disagree.” Lucretia stared blankly at the 18 year old information intern. Was this the same person she hired just a year ago? “You couldn’t have known what John planned to do with the relics.” Johann yawned. “You couldn’t have any idea that the ritual would even work! You were just writing down the information as it came. You were just doing your job.”  Johann paused glancing at Lucretia, “Right?” she nodded silent tears flowing down her face. “Ma’am I’ll be blunt. This fucking sucks. But I personally don’t think there’s really anyone to blame?” Lucretia stared at him blankly. “No one had any idea that the rituals would work, and Mr. Hunger? Was an absolute idiot who didn’t do his research.” Johann folded his arms. “But everyone was just doing what they were paid to do.” He rubbed his hair sleepily, “John was told to research the relics, so he did. You were told to write down as much information as you could, so you did.” Johann took a deep breath. “It’s not your fault Ma’am.” Lucretia slowly lowered herself to the ground and- 

“I’m not entirely sure you’re right.” Lucretia murmured leaning her head back into the bookshelf. “But I appreciate it Johann.” 

“Well, I’m not really worth anything without my words so.” Johann shrugged “Figure I might as well use them right?” Lucretia laughed bitterly, 

“Johann you’re worth so much more than your voice.” She closed her eyes already drifting off to sleep. 

“Sounds fake but okay,” Johann pretended to joke before letting Lucretia finish drifting off to sleep. 

* * *

 

Davenport heard the door to the building slide open and pulled his pistol spinning on his chair to find Lup, Barry, and about three more people he didn’t recognize, and a child that he also didn’t recognize.

“We’ve discussed civilians!” Davenport hissed and the Drow woman coughed awkwardly and pulled out an ID badge. 

“My name Is Ren Daviee,” her ears flicked down nervously, “I was a member of John Hunger’s team.” Before Davenport could respond he was cut off by the door opening again. 

“Hey DAV!” A loud familiar shout came as the door opened right behind them. “I know you said no civilians but these ones wouldn’t leave,” Taako walked in followed by Magnus, a woman on Magnus’s back, a small child, Killian, and Carey, who he did recognize, a woman with some very dangerous looking prosthetics, and a dark man carrying a scythe. Fisher and Junior enveloped Magnus within two minutes of the man entering the room. The woman on Magnus’s back laughed with surprise. Davenport groaned. 

“Did ANYONE listen when I said no-” 

“Sloane!” The dark man shouted and the tall girl with dark hair from Lup’s group breezed past Davenport to tackle him. The others looked at Davenport who sighed, 

“I’ll go wake up Lucretia. Shut the door.” He turned only to have Lucretia leaning on her staff in the hallway. 

“Guys.” She relaxed and Lup darted forward, Barry shortly behind her, to pull her into a hug. Magnus set Julia down next to Angus so he could join in the group hug. Merle waddled behind Magnus, and Taako just stood outside for a moment before Lup and Magnus pulled him in. Taako drug Davenport in with him. After a moment Taako slipped out and noticed the drow woman standing next to the unmistakable forms of Hurley and Sloane, the latter of which was still hugging her brother full of relief. 

“Hey!” Taako shouted at them and they all turned to stare at him as he approached. “Y’all fucking died! What the hell!” Hurley laughed and pulled Taako down into a hug. 

“I missed you too Taako!” She held him tightly and Sloane punched his arm. 

“Fucking saps,” Taako shoved Hurley off but he was smiling. He glanced up at Ren, Tiny compared to him, young, and had to grow up too fast. But alive. And she was looking everywhere but at Taako. 

“Listen. Taako- I just wanted to say- I mean I- I didn’t mean-” Taako groaned loudly and just pulled Ren into a hug. 

“I missed you too.” He rolled his eyes. He was a little caught off guard when Ren started sobbing. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so. So Sorry.” He glanced over at Sloane and Hurley who only guiltily looked away. 

* * *

 

“I had the stone,” Ren stood at the end of the table that the group sat around to get everyone caught up. 

“That’s great. Where’d you hide it?” Magnus asked and Ren flinched. 

“You gave it to the Wonder twins didn’t you,” Kravitz said. It wasn’t a question. Ren nodded the shocked stares at her not going unnoticed. 

“I didn’t have a choice.” Ren murmured, “We got into a fight and their younger brother, He- He tried to grab it without protection- As revenge they took June.” She squirmed looking at her feet. June leaned into Lup who held her close. “They demanded I give them the stone or they would have killed June.” 

“Wait. Where were Hurley and Sloane during this?” Barry inquired

“Well. Uh…” Hurley tapped her lip looking uncomfortable. “So the wonder twins had set up base inside a Costco. They were blocking everyone from entering. Literally killing anyone and everyone coming near so.” She tapped the table nervously. Sloane gently took her girlfriend's hand. “We were raiding their food storage while June and Ren distracted them.” 

“You- You fucking...” Taako cackled, “Wait hold on- Hold on a sec I can be mad in a sec I wanna make sure I got the facts straight.” He held up a hand and took a deep breath. “You. Upon seeing a violent trio of survivors hoarding all the good food. Decided that you should raid them? Despite knowing they could and would murder you?” 

“Uh…” Ren glanced over at Hurley and Sloane. “Yes?” 

“Baller!” Taako laughed with delight. 

“Ren.” Davenport sighed “Where are the wonder twins located?” 

“They have the Costco near the amusement park. They somehow set it up so you have to go through their twisted version of the amusement park in order to get there.” 

“How the fuck did they manage that?” Taako demanded, “It’s been a little over a month!” 

“They got help. And then killed the help.” Sloane spoke up for the first time since they sat down in this room. 

“How-” Davenport started to ask. 

“I watched them.” Sloane cut him off glancing up. 

“So the only way into Costco to get the only thing that could complete the cure is through their fucked up game?” Lup asked rubbing June’s shoulder. 

“Yes.” Hurley murmured. There was a long beat of silence and Magnus glanced up. 

"So... Now what?" Lucretia asked and n o one was really sure what to say as the silence falls over them. 

The silence was almost suffocating until a depressing voice broke it. 

  
"Isn't obvious?" Johann is sitting next to Avi on the table when all eyes turn to him   
"We're gonna have to fight." He breaks his usually depressing demeanor to smile at his friends and family around him. "And we're gonna win" 


	12. Blupjeans

The meeting ended with the plan to split up into groups to take on Wonderland. The nature of those groups to be decided later, as it was late and people were tired. Barry watched Lup lay down on the ground and watched with intrigue as June crawled over to her. 

“Hey, sweetie did you get your bandages changed?” 

“Mhmm. Miss Noelle said I was gonna be just fine,” June nodded cuddling close to Lup. Taako walked over to Barry and grabbed the back of his shirt dragging him back into the meeting room. Barry made distressed noises until Taako sat him down on a chair and shut the door behind them. 

“I was going to grab you eventually.” Barry laughed as Taako took a seat beside him. There was a loud groan emitting from Taako as the elf placed his hands over his head. “At the same time?” Barry asked moderately amused.

“Sure,” Taako muttered holding up three fingers to do a countdown once all of his fingers went down they blurred out what was bothering them. 

“I found a boyfriend and he’s hot and fuccckkkk Barold!! But it’s the apocalypse and I’m worried he only likes me because there’s no other options.” Taako blurted out faster than Barry could even process

“I think Lup and I somehow got adopted a kid.” Barry blinked “Wait you got a boyfriend??”

“Yeah, you know? Tall dark and handsome? Sloane’s brother?”

“Oh.” Barry paused thoughtfully. 

“You got a gremlin?” Taako raised an eyebrow at Barry who nodded dazedly. 

“She’s a real sweetheart.” 

“Who? The big-haired kid??” Taako asked and Barry nodded solemnly. Taako paused thoughtfully. “You know. Barry. That’s not really a bad thing.” 

“Taako what-“ Barry snapped his head up. “Taako-” Taako held up a hand and Barry snapped his mouth shut.

“Listen, All I’m saying is when we get this all fixed. That kid's gonna need someone. And I swear to god if you leave her with Ren  _ I _ will feed you to the zombies” 

“But Taako. Lup and I aren’t even  _ married _ yet.”

“So get married! You’ve been together for three fucking years!” Taako threw his arms in the air. “Can we bring it back to Taako central?”

“You have an attractive boyfriend.” Barry frowned confused, “what’s the issue.”

“Barry!” Taako shouted, “we’re in the home stretch here! The minute we get the stone we’ve got the cure within a week!” 

“So?”

“So dr sexy can go and find a better person immediately!” 

“Taako he’d be more than lucky to-“

“Have a boyfriend who got his first intern murdered, and worked for the company that started the apocalypse? Yeah, that’s real sexy Barry.” Taako folded his arms spinning in the chair. 

“Why don’t you talk to him?”

“Uh.” Taako frowned, “hello? I’m Taako. Taako don’t do feelings.” He paused, “hey wait a minute! Why don’t  _ you _ talk to Lup!?”

“Because-“ Barry closed his mouth realizing he didn’t really have a good excuse. Taako let out a cackle and sat up. 

“Tell you what. We survive this fucked up amusement park. And we  _ both _ go talk to our stupid lovers.” Taako held out his hand pinky extended

“Our family is a disaster,” Barry sighed completing the pinky promise. Taako let out a barking laugh. 

“You know it.”

* * *

“You must be Lup.” Lup had just finished tucking June in on one of the few comfy chairs here. Kravitz handed Lup a glass of the wine he had found underneath the kitchen sink.

“And you must be Kravitz. It’s nice to actually meet you.” She glanced at the wine in his hand, “Davenport is gonna be so mad you found this,” Lup laughed taking the glass. “He’s been hiding it for  _ years. _ ” Kravitz had a face of regret, which changed into a face of resignation as he looked down at the bottle, groaned and took a big swig from it. Lup cackled at this and gently nursed her glass. 

“So…” Lup smacked her lips together gesturing at Kravitz, “Love the grim reaper aesthetic.” 

“Uh. Thanks,” Kravitz rubbed his neck suddenly embarrassed. “I like your umbrella.” Lup grinned holding it up. 

“Thanks. It shoots fire.” Kravitz raised an eyebrow at this. They sat in silence for a bit and Lup took this opportunity to study Kravitz. He was a tall man with dark brown skin and even darker hair twisted into delicate dreadlocks that he had tied back in a bun. He was in a- well Lup suspected it  _ used _ to be a nice suit. Instead, it was just a white button-up t-shirt, one of the sleeves had been ripped off revealing a muscled arm. He had a black jacket on his arm that had a red tinge, which was probably why he wasn’t putting it back on Lup suspected the red ribbon in his hair was actually what used to be his tie. He also in a pair of nice black pants that were a little shredded at the edges. 

“I can see why Taako likes you,” Lup said breaking the silence. Kravitz sputtered and stared at Lup with a face tinged bright red. “Oh puh-lease. I’m not gonna murder you for dating my brother.” She flashed him a dangerous grin. “Unless you give me a reason to.” 

“I don’t intend on giving you a reason.” Kravitz recovered quite impressively. “I’ve seen Taako a few times before this whole thing happened.” Kravitz gently poured himself an actual glass of wine. “Sloane and Hurley take pictures, and then there was Sloane’s birthday party last year.” Kravitz laughed, “He was so drunk I don’t think he even remembers but…” Kravitz took a sip of the wine. “He’s had my heart from the moment I met him.” 

“Oh wait, I was there!” Lup blinked shocked, “Oh my god you were that guy who sat in the back corner of the room with Taako while he was drunk off his ass!” 

Kravitz chuckled, “I’m not a huge fan of parties, but I wanted to support my sister so.” He shrugged tucking a stray lock behind his ear. 

“Taako was crying the whole drive home because he forgot to give you his number.” Lup cackled

“I seen him a few times after that but, uh, how do you approach someone who doesn’t even remember you?” Kravitz glanced up at Lup. He glanced over at the meeting room where they could still hear the muffled shouting from their respected boyfriends. “Are they… Always like that?” 

“Nah. Barry and Taako get like that when they need someone to gossip to. They've been like that since my year in the Amazon” Lup shrugged, “He really likes you.” 

“I like him.” Kravitz replied before glancing at Lup concerned, “Forgive me if I’m crossing a line, but you don’t think he might just be…” He drifted off uncomfortable under Lup’s gaze. 

“Okay. Lemme put it this way.”Lup sighed, “Sloane and I are buddies on Snapchat.” She paused tapping her chin thoughtfully. “It was like. End of may beginning of June, Sloane just graduated. Right?” Kravitz nodded unsure where she was going with this. “Right. So She took a selfie with you and posted it on her story. Taako caught me looking at it right?” Kravitz was staring intently. “I kid you not his exact words were; ‘Damn that’s one hot man. Can Sloane hook a fellow gay up?’” Lup winked at Kravitz. 

“And that was before her birthday party,” Lucretia limped into the room and Lup snapped her head up. 

“Oh hey! Luce!” Lup reached over by the door and picked up her bag before reaching in. “I know we kinda glossed over it, but you said you needed a copy of the rituals notebook right?” She pulled out a glossy blue notebook with an hourglass style image on the front. “I can’t really understand your chicken scratch but I recognize the ritual drawings you made.” She handed it to Lucretia. “This will help right?” 

Lucretia shakily took the notebook and there was a long moment of silence as Lucretia started crying. 

“Uh, Lucretia? ooofff” Lucretia pulled Lup into a hug sobbing. 

“Thank you.” She whispered, “Thank you thank you thank you.” 


	13. Kravitz, Angus, Julia

Hurley found a vehicle with a full tank and managed to get everyone ready to go while Sloane hotwired it. The groups they agreed on were; Taako, Magnus, and Merle. No one wanted to mess with that Trio since they’ve been doing so well this long. Killian, Carey, and Noelle volunteered next, they were eager to get this month long, living hell over with as soon as they could. The third group was Lup, Barry, and Johann. Which shocked everyone and even had a brief argument between Johann and Avi. Inevitably though, Davenport allowed it. Kravitz and Angus were ordered to play home base with Ren while the rest of them helped Lucretia with the cure. 

“Does everyone have their walkie-talkies?” Magnus asked and each group held up their walkie-talkies. “Now does everyone know what channel they’re supposed to be on?” 

“Seven,” The group recited. 

“And Ren? Can you guys hear us?” 

“Loud and clear Magnus!” Ren echoed through the Walkie Talkies. “Be careful in there okay?” 

“Taako?” Kravitz’s voice came through the walkie-talkies. 

“Go for Taako? What’s up bone boy?” Taako raised an eyebrow casually. 

“Be careful.” 

“Hmm me? Always.” Taako joked and Kravitz sighed. 

“Taako,” Kravitz said again gripping the talkie nervously he of all people knew exactly what Taako was going into. He helped  _ build _ it. “Please.” 

“Hey, Kravitz?” Taako replied and Kravitz blinked not used to Taako using his full name. 

“Y-Yes?” 

“I’m coming back to you.” The walkie-talkie clicked and Julia snickered from the couch cocking her head back in a loud whisper. 

“Gaaayyyyyyyy!” 

“Mom you can hardly talk!” Angus protested working furiously to try and restore their wifi signal. 

“I’m married in a straight relationship. You have zero dirt on me.” Julia countered, laughing. 


	14. Chapter 14

Taako Magnus and Merle are the last to enter Wonderland. Magnus opens the wooden door waves goodbye to Hurley and Sloane and shuts it behind them. Right as the door shuts there’s a clicking noise followed by the sound of several lights turning on. 

“This place looks like the inside of Lup’s umbrella” Merle muttered wrinkling his nose at the multicolored walls and flashing lights. Taako snorted and Magnus cackled. 

“You made it!” A voice echoed through the room. “I was beginning to think we would never have the pleasure of meeting you.” Taako’s ears shot up at this and the trio spun around nervously. Where were the voices coming from?

“Welcome to Wonderland!” A separate voice echoed before sucking in a laugh. “We’ve been waiting for you… Employees of ICRE.” Taako stared at Magnus. 

“Did they just-” Magnus frowned confused.

“What’s Ichor?” Taako repeated what he had just heard and Magnus gave him a shrug. “Oh I know they didn’t,” Taako placed a hand on his chest. “Uh! Darlings! It’s pronounced I-C-R-E. It’s an abbreviation, not a word!” 

“Is it?” There was a hushed whisper and the female voice came back. 

“So it is! Our  _ deepest _ apologies.” 

“She doesn’t sound particularly sorry,” Taako whispered to Merle who snickered. 

“Wonderland is our assessment to see who is  _ worthy _ of joining us in paradise.” The woman echoed coming from everywhere, “I am Lydia.” 

“And I am Edward,” The male voice added. 

“The rules are simple.” They could  _ hear _ Lydia smile through the microphone  “You will be evaluated through a series of tests and games in order to determine the extent to which you truly want your prize.” Taako frowned, that seemed too easy. 

“They won’t be easy though!” Edward warned almost hearing Taako’s thoughts. “And you can’t turn back now!” There was a cackle though whether it came from Edward or Lydia it was hard to tell. Possibly both. 

“Please! Enter the next room!” A door slid open garage door style. Magnus glanced at Taako and Merle who shrugged. 

Inside the room was a wheel of fortune style wheel with eight options on it. Some bigger or smaller than the others, but eight options. 

“Each of you must spin from our wheel of sacrifice,” Edward announced, and okay, maybe this was a bad idea. 

“If you wish you can elect not to do a sacrifice. However, someone else will have to take a second spin for you,” Lydia added. 

“What kind of sacrifices are we talking?” Merle inquired. 

“Why don’t you step up and see?” Lydia giggled with delight. 

“Uh…” Merle paused before shrugging, “Sure why not.” He walked up and spun the wheel. It slowly spun before landing on the eye. 

“Ooh,” Lydia sounded intrigued. “Merle. How do you feel about someone punching you in the eye?” Taako did not like this at all. 

“Uh… I’d probably  _ not _ like it?” 

“Oh not to worry, after every sacrifice round a proper med kit is provided,” Edward promised. Magnus clenched his fist already hating these nasally voices. 

“I wanna see him with a black eye,” Lydia whispered into the microphone menacingly. Magnus and Taako looked at each other and then over at Merle.  

“I think that would be interesting.” Edward agreed “Boys. Someone must punch Merle in the eye in order to proceed.” 

“Give us a second,” Taako declared and the voices went silent.

“Merle.” Magnus pulled them close, “Are you okay with this?” 

“It’s just a punch in the eye.” Merle shrugged, “what’s the big deal?” 

“What if it gets worse!” Magnus hissed, “What if next-” 

“I what? Lose a whole eye? What are the chances of me landing on eye again?” 

“Like 12%” Taako muttered, “Probably more.” 

“Shove it Taako.” Merle rolled his eyes. “The point is. We can’t turn around. And we need to get to them anyways.” 

“Well, I for one don’t wanna do it.” Magnus muttered, “If I punch you-”

“No yeah please fucking don’t.” Merle shook his head. “I like having a skull in one piece.” 

“Taako?” Magnus glanced at the elf. 

“This place fucking sucks,” Taako mutters. “Yeah, I’ll fucking punch Merle.” 

“Do the rest of us have to spin?” Magnus asked sitting up from their conversation.

“Oh yes of course!” Lydia clapped, “It would hardly be fair to do otherwise!” 

“I’ll go next then,” Taako shrugged grabbing the edge of the wheel and spinning it as fast as he could. The wheel slowed down landing on a very ominous skull. 

“Oh. Bad luck.” Lydia cackled and Taako frowned, 

“What do I gotta do? Give you my life?” 

“Oh no! That’d be awful entertainment!” Edward scolded. “That symbol simply means that the luck will not be in your favor sometime soon.” 

“Oh…” Taako blinked, “Okay.” He glanced over at Merle as Magnus walked up to the wheel and gave it a spin. “Hey, c'mere!  I’ll give you a punch!” Merle started taking a step backward and Taako groaned. “Do you  _ want _ Magnus to punch you?”

“No,” Merle grumbled slowing to a stop. 

Taako placed a hand on Merle’s shoulder. “Hey, Merle?” Taako gave him a lighthearted grin.  “I’m not even sorry.” 

“Yeah Love you too buddy,” Merle raised an eyebrow. 

He punched Merle as hard as he could. Which was not exactly overwhelmingly hard. But it was enough that Merle was sent reeling. A light above the exit door turned green. Followed by a second green light. Leaving just one red light. 

“Magnus landed on hand,” Lydia whispered. 

“Can you give us something from your hand Magnus?” Edward cackled

“Like what?” Magnus placed his hands on his hips. 

“Perhaps a finger?” Lydia suggested, 

“A whole finger? No, no, no, sister. We want him to survive the remaining rounds!” 

“Oh fine.” Lydia paused, “What about a broken bone?” 

“Oh?” Edward sounded intrigued, “What did you have in mind?” There was a click and a drawer opened up. 

“Taako,” Lydia announced and Taako looked up from Merle. 

“Yeah? Whatchu want?” He pats Merle's shoulder standing up. 

“Can you lift that Hammer from the drawer?” Taako frowned confused and stared at it. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a two-handed metal hammer. He lifted it up with ease. “Oh, lovely! Now please smash one of Magnus’s fingers with that.” 

“Well tits,” Magnus sighed.

“Oh fuck.” Taako said at the same time flicking his ears down. He wanted to protest. He wanted to throw down the hammer and tell these disembodied voices to go fuck themselves. But if he did that they’d never get to the cure. He kept his ears flicked down and murmured, “Maggie? What finger am I smashing?” He was so done with this fucking place. 

“Uh. Here smash my pinky.” Magnus sat on the ground palm down as he held out his hand pulling his other fingers out of the way and closing his eyes. Taako lifted the hammer 

“This fucking sucks,” Taako repeated before bringing the hammer down. 

 

The light turned green and the door slid open. Inside the next room, a spotlight was on two pedestals. On one pedestal a big red cross bag was sitting. On the opposite two buttons were sitting. Taako gripped the handle of the hammer while Magnus went with Merle and walked over to the pedestal with the buttons. The buttons read “Trust”, and “Forsake”

“Oh no no no dear!” Lydia scolded, “It’s not your turn!” Taako took a step back from the pedestal nervously. He had no idea what these things were capable of and he  _ hated it _ . “Merle honey! You’re up for trust or forsake!” 

“What now?” Merle asked in the middle of treating Magnus’s hand. 

“Trust or forsake!” Edward sounded a little too excited. “Here are the rules!” A projector turned on from somewhere and this list scrolled down. 

 

**Group A chooses Trust/ while group B chooses Forsake: Group B picked "forsake" and will therefore be able to skip their challenge, while group A must go through a very difficult version of their challenge.**

 

**Group A Chooses Trust/ Group B chooses Trust: Both groups will still have to do their challenge, but it will be at its standard difficulty.**

 

**Group A chooses Forsake/Group B chooses Forsake: Both groups must do the more difficult version of their challenge.**

 

Taako stares at it before glancing over at Merle who finishes treating Magnus and walks over to the stand. 

“Forsake ‘em m’ dude,” Taako shouted at Merle. 

“Taako! That could be Killian! Or Lup!” Magnus snapped

“And it could also NOT be!” Taako countered. “I for one, don’t wanna get fucked because we played nice!” 

“Seems like we’re already fucked,” Magnus countered. Merle rolled his eyes at the two of them and lowered his arm down and pressed the big green letters  **Trust** . There was a moment of dreaded silence before big red letters spelling out  **Forsake** appeared through the projector knocking the Trust off screen. 

“FUCK!” Taako screamed stomping like an actual child. The next door opened this time to almost nothing.

“Good luck!” Lydia laughed as they walked into the room. They made it about two steps in before Magnus noticed the plastic wall between them. 

“Taako!” He smashed his hand on the glass ignoring the pain of his hand. “Merle!” Taako looked absolutely panicked. The door to Magnus’s plastic room opened and a zombie with a muzzle stumbled out. The same happened in Merles room. But in Taakos?

“Taako. Dear.” Lydia sounded absolutely 100% bloodthirsty. “You spun on Skull earlier correct?” 

“Uh. Yeah, why?” Taako gripped his glaive in one hand and his new hammer in another. 

“Bad luck,” Lydia cackled as the door to taakos room slid open and he was faced with a large zombie, probably almost 7 feet tall and all hulking, now undead, muscle. The worst part? It was unmuzzled. 

“TAAKO!” Magnus shouted as the being locked it’s disgusting yellowed eyes with Taako. 

There was a dead silence as this thing decided to charge and, for a brief moment, Taako wondered if he was going to even survive another round.  


	15. Lucretia| Davenport

Lucretia had Avi, Davenport, Hurley, and Sloane. Even Ren and June were eager to help. She could do this. She could do this, no problem. This would be easy. She flipped through the notebook opening it up to the page. She had initially assumed it was a tea, back when she first found it, but now the placement in the temple made much more sense. 

“Okay! Avi, I need the biggest bin, bowl, whatever it is it’s gotta be metal because we’ll have to heat it” 

“On it!” Avi saluted sprinting, 

“Davenport help Avi fill the bowl he finds with water from Fishers tank. Yes, it has to be from Fisher’s tank specifically. Don’t do Juniors, he’s too young.” Lucretia glanced over at the strangers and sighed. 

“Okay. Hurley? Sloane? Be  _ very _ careful. But I need about a gallon of bulwark sap. If you get any on your skin wash it off immediately you hear me?” 

“Yes, ma’am!” Hurley and Sloane nodded before sprinting for the greenhouse. 

“June? I need some of the Gaia vines.” She sighed at June’s confused face and flipped through the page of her book before finding a sketch. “They’re in the gardens with Hurley and Sloane. But they look like this! I need as many as you can carry.” She carefully tore out the sketch and handed it to June. 

“How are they doing?” She asked Ren who simply shook her head. 

“Uh. Well. Barry has been smashed upside the head by Lup’s umbrella, Johann was punched in the face and has a black eye now, and Lup had to give up a good chunk of her ammo.” Ren’s voice trembled, “Killian had to give up about fifteen of her arrows. Carey had to peel off about five scales around her nose, and Noelle has a bloody nose.” 

“Any word from the boys?” Lucretia pushed. Ren paused listening to the headset. 

“No- Wait,” there was a long beat of silence.  “They’re not great,” Ren admitted. 

“How so?” 

“Taako has a stab wound right above his hip, apparently stabbed himself? Magnus’s pinky is broken, and Merle has a black eye.” She paused listening. “Oh, Taako’s Glaive got snapped in half.” She stopped the minute she finished that sentence. Turning around she glanced over at Angus who was wearing a similar headset. “Angus!” she called and the young boy turned around. 

“Yes, ma’am?” He took off one of the ears of the headset. 

“They only finished one round?” 

“This is the first round correct ma’am,” Ren tensed at this “Uh. Okay thanks, Angus,” She flashed him a thumbs up before pushing her hair back. “Fuuuucccckkkkk.” 

“They’ll be fine,” Julia said confidently from the floor. “They’re more resilient than they look.” She paused, “At least if they’re friends with Magnus they are.” 

Avi and Davenport wheeled a metal bowl in on a wagon. They stopped it in front of Lucretia who inspected it. This was the water softener container cut in half so she could access it easier. It would work perfectly. 

“Avi I need a fire.” Lucretia mulled over this. “And Davenport. Maybe cut a hole below that wagon so we can just wheel it back and forth over the fire.” 

“Huh.” Sloane held out her hand as the sap turned her normally dark brown skin white. “Trippy”

“Sloane!” Lucretia snapped, “Go wash that off now!!” Sloane flinched but quickly obeyed Hurley held out the gallon jug to Lucretia who held it up and carefully dumped it into the bowl as Davenport and Avi started working on the fire. “Hurley, can you help them set up a fire?” 

“Uh… sure,” Hurley frowned absolutely baffled. 

“Thank you.” 

“Ahhhhh!!” June cackled running into the room pursued by Junior, her arms full of the vines. “Here you go!” She held them out proudly. 

“Excellent.” Lucretia set them on the ground and crouched down awkwardly. “June would you help me again?” 

“Okay!” June perked up. 

“Great. I need something to smash these up. They gotta be super tiny, and squished.” She smiled at June. 

“Oh!” June stood up, ran over to a bag, and ran back with a hammer, and a dagger. “Will these work?” 

“June!” Ren gasped, “Where’d you get that!” 

“‘Show me what you have,’” Sloane muttered. “‘A knife!’” and Hurley snickered. 

“No!!” she laughed and Sloane stole a kiss. “Okay okay, kisses later gotta set up a fire now babe.” 

“That will work perfectly June,” Lucretia took the knife from June. “I’m going to cut these up and place them…” She paused and glanced around. Davenport slid a cutting board her way and she smiled relieved. “On this board. I want you to smash them with the hammer alright?” 

“Yes, ma’am!” June smiled brightly. Lucretia took a deep breath and got to work. She could do this. She was going to fight for this cure. 

 

And she was going to win. 


	16. Blupjeans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! this one gets a little gory so please be careful!

Lup grunted as Barry helped her up to her feet. “Johann?” Lup glanced over at the boy, “you good?” 

“This fucking sucks,” Johann decides standing up. Lup walked over to the pedestal with the first aid kit and helped Barry treat his wounds. The zombies had all been muzzled, thank god, but that didn’t stop them from being ridiculously violent. Barry had a nasty gash on his forehead and several on his arms. Lup however, was mostly unscathed thanks to her umbrella burning her zombie to a crisp. While she bandaged up Barry she heard him check in with the others. 

“Taako? How are you doing?” He glanced around, they somehow had set up a tent around the fucking Ferris wheel. And it held pretty firmly. He was kinda impressed. “Taako?” 

“Uh yeah, Chaboy got stabbed. I’ll get back to ya-OW MERLE! STOP THAT!”

“You’re going to bleed to death if I don’t! Stop moving!” 

“Uh. Okay. Killian? Carey?” No response, “team sweet flips you guys okay?” There was a beat and dread set in Barry’s gut. 

“Hey! Carey!? You guys alive?” Taako shouted into the walkie-talkie. 

“Yeah!” Noelle’s voice came through, “Yeah! Sorry. We’re all good”

“Don’t scare us like that!” Taako shouted and Barry chuckled. He hated this place. But at least everyone was in one piece so far. 

“Oh, they have communication devices!” Barry heard Lydia say and he quickly hid the talkie. Lydia merely laughed at this. “Oh no no no!” She smiled and the lights flicked on. “Boys. This is Barney, L-up, and Joe Han.” Lup physically flinched at the cruel mispronunciation of their group’s names. She was quickly distracted from this ear pain when three more figures were suddenly in the light. They all glared up at the spotlight like they didn’t want to deal with them. Lup’s stomach wrung when she recognized them. 

“Greg.” She snarled, “You owe me 15 bucks.” 

“And you cost me a job.” Greg countered not getting up from 

“YOU TAMPERED WITH THE PLANE!” Lup screamed at him beyond frustrated why he would be mad at HER. “YOU. TRAPPED ME! IN THE AMAZON!! FOR A YEAR!!!” Barry placed a hand on his girlfriend's shoulder before glancing up. 

“What’s the deal here?” His voice trembled with an anger that shocked Lup. 

“Oh, you see these boys refused to go any farther so. They get to stay here!” Lydia explained and Greg Grimaldis “They refused to attack each other!” Lup blinked at Greg, honestly impressed. 

“In fact, they destroyed our lovely wheel.” Edward pouted, “So we came up with  a new challenge for you boys.” Barry didn’t like the sound of that. “Only three people can continue!” Edward’s voice sounded too excited. And knowing the last round? Barry didn’t like that. 

“How you go about that is up to you guys.” Greg was already picking up a shotgun and Lup gripped her umbrella tightly. 

“Good luck!” The twins cut out and Barry moved to stand with Lup, his baseball bat out. Greg took a step forward and Lup snarled loudly holding an arm out protectively in front of Johann. 

“WAIT!” Johann shouted and the fighters slid to a stop. “They never said we had to fight!” 

“You really think we’d just let you go through?” One of Greg's friends snarled. “Why would we do that?” Johann cocked his head at them in an ‘ _ are you stupid’ _ face. 

“Uh. Because we can cure the Hunger if we make it to the end?” The only person who wasn’t swayed by this was Greg. 

“How are we supposed to get out of here then?” Greg growled and Johann walked over to the door they had entered through. The door itself was a thick metallic door. But the walls around it? 

“HEY!” Lup shouted and a bullet embedded itself in the wall. Johann yelped and turned to face Greg and groaned before pulling out a small dagger and burying it in the wall. 

“They’re ruling by manipulation.” Johann explained, “you could easily,  _ easily _ get out of here.” He pointed at the large ax in one of the men’s hands. “Especially with that.” 

“Wait seriously? It’s not metal?” The man with the ax walked forward and Johann scrambled backward as he swung violently into the wall. He let out a laugh of shock as the wall crumbled underneath his swing. 

“Holy shit.” Greg breathed and the man with the ax backed up for another swing. 

“OH NONONONO!!!” Lydia cackled but it sounded forced, “That’s CHEATING!” There was a pause, “Don’t make us punish you, boys.” 

“FUCK YOU!” Greg shouted and he pointed his pistol at a specific area in the room. Something shattered and the voices stopped before sounding less overwhelming and more identifiable. It was coming from a small speaker in the wall. 

“You’re going to regret that Joe Han,” Lydia growled.

“It’s Johann. And you need to have more faith in the good in people! This is one fight you won’t win!!” Johann snapped at the ceiling 

“A wordsmith sister,” Edward growled 

“Quite a wordsmith indeed.” Lydia sounded angry. 

“I wonder what would happen if we took his words from him?” Greg shot the speaker and the room went silent. 

“Good luck up there.” Greg glanced up at Lup. “Tell you what.” He grinned, “I’ll give you the 15 bucks if you get out alive” He didn’t wait for Lup to respond, he just climbed out of the hole that his friend had made in the wall. 

“HI. I’m PISSED.” Lup screamed in annoyance but she was smiling. 

“Way to go Johann!!” Barry clapped the teenager on the shoulder. Johann laughed rubbing his neck. 

“It’s just some basic thinking. I’m kinda worried why they didn’t think of it sooner?” 

The door slid open and he snapped his head up at Lydia and Edwards disembodied laughter coming from the next room. 

“What do you think is next?” Barry inquired and Johann gripped his dagger tightly before walking into the room. Barry let him and Lup walk forward while he updated the others. 

“Hey, Taako we made it through the next room safely how-” 

“Taako can’t come to the phone right now uhhh.” Magnus sounded off, Scared even. “We’ll get back to-” A scream of pain came across the speaker “SHIT” 

“TAAko!” Lup spun and reached forward for the Speaker when an arrow slammed into the talkie and narrowly missed Lup’s hands. Barry inhaled sharply when the arrow sliced his hand. 

“Who’s there?” Barry demanded and Johann listened intently.  “Show yourself! We can help you get out of here!” 

“Barry.” Johann tensed, 

“Oh, but why would we want to do that?” A voice cocked his head as he walked forward and Lup had to be gripped by Johann to stop from running forward. It was an elven man wearing a familiar jacket and carrying an all too familiar bag. Johann immediately recognized him and wanted to run. “They’ve given me so many good people to kill.” Jenkins walked forward and Johann gripped Lup’s arm even tighter. He made eye contact with Johann and grinned. 

“Hello boy.” 

“Be careful,” Johann murmured holding Lup’s arm, she inhaled in pain. 

“He’s got her jacket.” Lup growled. 

“I know.” Barry murmured already trembling with anger. 

“I bought her that jacket.” Lup struggled a bit against Johann but he simply held her back. 

“Scared boy?” He laughed, “Good.” Lup blinked suddenly occurring to her that this man knew Johann. “Tell you what.” He held out two machetes “You two give me the boy. And I’ll let you go on ahead.” 

“What do you want with Johann?” Lup demanded standing protectively in front of the teenager. 

“Oh, nothing much. He’s just got some unfinished business.” Jenkins swung the machete  too casually, “That little BITCH just got me sent away for murder and abuse! That’s all.” Jenkins sounded too casual and Lup gripped her umbrella ripping from Johann’s grasp to stand in front of him. 

“Hey, that jacket.” She growled. “Where’d you get it?” 

“This old thing?” Jenkins sounded surprised. “I pulled it off some bitch on the streets.” He laughed, “She was so weak I probably did her a favor making it easier for the zombies!” 

“THAT’S IT!” Surprisingly it isn’t Lup who takes the first shot. Barry pulls out a pistol that Johann didn’t even know he had and fires at Jenkins mercilessly as he empties the cartridge in the pistol he walks forward. Once the gun stops firing Barry reaches back with his bat and swings. 

“You merciless horrible son of a bitch!” He snarls and Lup takes a moment to watch him go. 

“Hot.” She mutters before running into action to help her boyfriend. 

Johann looked around nervously. Jenkins didn’t work alone. It wasn’t his M.O. It certainly wasn’t his M.O. when Johann was a child, it wasn’t his M.O. when Jenkins and Johann’s mother worked together. 

It wasn’t his M.O. When Jenkins murdered his mother in front of him to punish Johann. 

Johann caught sight of the movement behind him and he couldn’t even scream. 

Barry heard the body thud to the ground and initially thought it was just Jenkins. The now unconscious, soon to be dead, man. But then he heard Lup let out a scream and spun around. He had planned to use the second cartridge for the twins but when he seen the man standing over the now bleeding form of Johann with a knife in his throat he went red. He grabbed the second cartridge and fired. 

Lup was already by Johann’s side once the man had fallen. 

“Aww our favorite toys,” Lydia pouted and Barry shot at the speaker. 

“He shot our toys sister.” Edward whined and Barry shot the next speaker. 

“Should have taken him through the trust or forsake again.” Lydia murmured, “Then at least they could fight their friends.” Barry shot the last speaker before dropping the gun.

“HELP!” Lup screamed. “Barry!!” She was kneeling over Johann unsure what to do. “HELP SOMEONE!” She started sobbing. “Johann you stay with us okay!?” Lup begged as Johann took shaky gasping breaths like he couldn’t get enough air. 

“HEY!” Barry shouted desperately. “SOMEONE!!” He could still hear the Twins laughter muffled by the walls- No wait that was more human. More- A wall in the room broke down and Killian ran in carrying Noelle on her back and Karey right behind her. Noelle was missing her legs but they looked fairly unscathed. At least compared to the machete stab wounds that both Barry and Lup had on their left shoulder. They were laughing and Killian was holding a large… Well, it can only be described as a battering ram and she seemed to be enjoying it a little to much. 

“OH FUCK!” Noelle screamed at the sight of them kneeling over a choking Johann and she pulled out her walkie talkie. “HEY REN I’M GONNA NEED SOME FUCKING FIRST AID HERE NOW” 

“ALREADY ON OUR WAY!” Kravitz shouted back into the talkie. “If you see Ren and Julia there let us know!” 

“Tell mom she’s not allowed to die!” Angus shouted. 

“Wait where’s Ren and Julia?” 

“They took off running shortly after Taako got his knee smashed.” Angus explained. 

“Noelle where are you?” Kravitz shouted and Noelle gestured to Johann. 

“Killian’s going to come and get you. Carey, you help me keep him alive until then.” She stood over Johann and gently pulled out the large first aid kit that her and Killian had found a few rooms back. After the first round of the wheel of sacrifice Killian got a little more than pissed and discovered how fragile the rooms were. “Hang on Johann.” Noelle worked quickly. She had to make sure he could breath. “Just stay with us. Okay? Johann, you listen to me” She felt panic crawl up her throat as Killian took off running for the exit.  “You’re going to be fine.” 

 

“I promise” 


	17. Julia and Ren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Lydia could even move towards Taako. Before Ren could even take advantage of this distraction. The room watched in shock as Lup PUSHED past her brother and tackled Edward to the ground.
> 
> “YOU!” She was sobbing with anger. “You’re the one who did all of this??”
> 
> “No- I- what- How-”
> 
> “I’m gonna fucking Kill you now.” Lup snarled,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey heads up it's kinda graphic here I had to describe Taako's injuries.

Julia was already in the truck when Ren had started running out. 

“Going after the boys?” She asked rolling the window down and Ren blinked shocked. “I told Angus I was getting some air. Now come on before they catch on.” She waved Ren into the Truck. 

“Aren’t you injured?” Ren asked buckling in. 

“Shut up.” Julia grumbled, “You’re worse than that Kravitz.” She sped out in the streets. “Directions kiddo!” 

“I’m older than you,” Ren grumbled- “RIGHT!” The car swerved to the right Julia grunting with the effort. 

“Focus honey!” Julia scolded. “Last time I drove there was traffic laws!” 

“When was that?” Ren mumbled, “1967?” 

“Ooh, you shut it.” Julia gave her a glare that wilted Ren. 

“Left up here.” 

 

They pulled into a spot behind a Costco. Julia frowned at the massive thing that she could spot just on the other side of Wonderland. “Wait here!” Ren ran in and Julia watched the girl run in before groaning and standing up. No way was she letting this kid get in the heat of things without her. She grabbed her ax’s from the backseat of the vehicle and made her way limping weakly to back entrance just barely catching it before it had shut after Ren had closed it. 

“LYDIA!” Ren shouted and Julia tensed, what the FUCK was this kid doing? The Twins might be living here but if they had the stone then- “LYDIA! EDWARD! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!” Julia limped quietly following her. 

“Ooh.” A female voice echoed through the Costco. “I thought we told you not to return. We’ve taken what we wanted from you.” 

“Lydia.” Ren was pleading. “Lydia please He- Taako and his friends. We’ve found a cure.” There was a thud and Julia saw Ren’s silhouette flinch back as the twins approached her carrying a staff with a large pink rock on the tip. Ren scrambled back and Julia had to back into the shadows to avoid being caught. 

“You’re working for them?” Edward sounded curious. “They started this!” He was wielding the stick that Ren was watching oh so carefully. “They’re the ones who started this! The ones who caused all this pain! We’re merely showing them the same kindness.” His anger slipped through and his sister placed a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry.” He apologized, patting his sister’s hand. “Ren. You’re an intelligent girl, and you brought us our lovely gift. I’ll give you a chance.” He stared at her with a look that made Julia’s stomach pit. He  _ liked _ her. “Leave. While we punish the creators of this whole mess” 

“IT WASN’T THEIR FAULT!” Ren shouted her ears flicked back desperately. “IT WAS MINE!” Lydia spun her attention to the conversation no longer whispering into the headset she was wearing. She tore the headset off and tapped a few buttons on her phone. 

“What. Did. you. Say?” Her voice low and Julia suddenly knew Ren wasn’t going to last long. Julia had to think quickly. She didn’t even notice as the doors to the shop opened up to her husband and his friends. She was too busy running-well speed limping- outside. She needed a distraction for Ren. So… Oh fuck. Well, at least this would work. Right outside was about fifteen zombies. Currently inspecting her truck. 

“HEY ASSHOLES!” Julia shouted clanging her ax against the door. This shocked Lydia enough that she missed her swing at Ren. “GO FUCK YOURSELVES” The zombie’s attention was brought to the open door and they swarmed in. Julia watched relieved as Ren started fighting with Lydia to avoid being stabbed by the end of it. She was forced to put her attention towards a stray zombie coming her way. 

“FUCK.” She snapped placing her ax in its mouth as it tackled her to the ground. She whimpered in pain but was too busy trying not to get zombified. 

On the other side of the room, Ren’s entire method of fighting was FUCK DON’T LET IT TOUCH YOU. She had hoped to talk some sense into them, so she had left her weapons behind. All she had on her was her fists and well, she never was good at fighting hand to hand. The staff landed a blow on a shelf next to her. FAR too close for comfort. Edward sat back in the middle of the hallway looking moderately guilty but didn’t step in as Lydia pushed Ren into the shelves. Ren ducked and tucked into a shelf. She was cornered. This was it she was-

“HEY!” Someone shouted and the entire room went silent as Taako, leaning on Magnus, his knee in a very disshappen mess, his nose obviously broken, and his hair completely shaved. The part that made Ren want to scream in anguish was his ears. His large expressive beautiful ears. His right head had several notches carved into them. His left ear had an entire tip chopped off. Nevertheless, despite looking like a shell of his former self, he pointed at Lydia. “Get the FUCK away from her.” He snarled and Lydia cackled. 

“Oh good. I was hoping I could use this on you.” Before Lydia could even move towards Taako. Before Ren could even take advantage of this distraction. The room watched in shock as Lup PUSHED past her brother and tackled Edward to the ground. 

“ _ YOU! _ ” She was sobbing with anger. “You’re the one who did all of this??” 

“No- I- what- How-” 

“I’m gonna fucking Kill you now.” Lup snarled, Ren didn’t want to see this and Julia forced herself to look away still struggling with her own fight. Julia heard Lydia scream and out of the corner of her eye, she saw the elf raise the staff towards Lup. Ren was on the floor screaming desperately for Lup to watch out. Magnus was occupied with Taako, Julia couldn’t even SEE Merle in this mess. She saw the staff swing towards Lup and  _ NO _ . She wasn’t about to let this happen. She released the zombie pulling her ax back and using her shoulder to jab it upward so she could launch the ax straight at the elf. She seen it solidly smack with Lydia’s neck causing the girl to drop the staff just before it hit Lup. She seen Lup’s shocked face turn to relief, turn to horror when she looked up and made eye contact with Julia. And oh. She glanced over at her left shoulder where the pained sensation had started to finally reach her. 

 

The hunger had gotten her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in the homestretch!


	18. THB

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kravitz laughed. “Taako, Love, you look like Sloane when she found our mothers razor.” Taako wasn’t sure he was registering this. Kravitz called him love. He called Taako. Love.

Taako found himself on the ground in a LOT of pain because Magnus just dropped him. Lup scrambled to her feet, her arms now covered in two people’s blood. She left the dagger in Edward and walked over to Taako holding the staff the Wonderland twins had made with the stone. 

“I’m sorry,” Taako was crying his arms over his face. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.” 

“Sweetie.” Lup lowered herself down to her brother, “What did they do to you?” 

“We had to fight another group to even touch the trust or forsake panel.” Merle explained waddling in with a medkit, “HOLy SHIT.” Merle was suddenly aware of the mess going on here and was suddenly mildly concerned. 

“LUP!” Magnus shouted and they all turned to find him holding his wife surrounded by several dead zombies. Julia’s eyes were starting to roll back in her head. “Ren’s got the truck started out here. We need to GO!” 

“But- Johann!” Lup glanced back and Magnus hesitated before shaking his head. 

“Lup I need to go and I need that staff. Lucretia has the cure brewing all she needs is the stone.” He was begging. “Please, Lup I can still save her.” Lup glanced over at Merle. 

“They’re that way. Take the medkit. Please, they’ll need all the help they can get.” She picked up Taako carefully and followed Magnus into the car. Taako gripped his sister. 

“I pressed forsake. It was my fault. I’m so sorry.” Lup’s ears flicked forward at this. 

“Taako what-” 

“In we go!” Magnus picked them up and set them in the bed of the truck as he crawled into the backseat next to Julia. “SLAM IT REN!” The car spun out and Lup gripped the side of the truck with one arm and Taako with the other. Taako whimpered but studied his sister. She had blood coming from her shoulder, a few slashes on her face, there were SEVERAL holes in her jacket. But otherwise, she was okay. She was breathing, and she looked determined. 

“Taako. What did those assholes do to you?” She growled and Taako tensed as they took a hard left. 

“Johann and-” Taako murmured gently reaching up towards Lup’s shoulder but stopping himself before he actually touched it. “It was my fault. I’m the one who chose forsake.” Another hard left and Taako slid into Lup wincing slightly.  

“EASY UP THERE!” Lup shouted. No one responded but she seemed satisfied. “Taako. The trust or forsake game?” She leaned forward forcing Taako to at least partially see her. “Totally bullshit. The entire thing was built to test your character and to torture you before they see you.” Taako didn’t seem convinced. “Taako. We got one round of trust or forsake and then it was just them throwing people at us.” Taako forced himself to nod in agreement. “Koko. There was absolutely NOTHING in there that was connecting your difficulty to ours. It was all bullshit illusions!” 

“Oh,” Taako mumbled. 

“HANG ON GUYS!” Magnus shouted as the truck did a hard left again, Ren slamming on the break, and sliding it right into the curb. It tilted a big and Lup let out a scream of alarm before it slammed back down. Magnus rushed forward, Julia on one arm the end of the staff, broken off and wrapped in his jacket, in the other. Ren moved to help Taako and Lup. 

“LUCRETIA!” Magnus shouted holding his jacket up. Lucretia’s head snapped up and her relief quickly turned to horror at Julia. “Please!” 

“She- No one hurt her right?” 

“No, she just got bit,” Magnus confirmed as Julia started lunging towards people. Magnus found himself struggling to keep her back and tossed the jacket to Lucretia before trying to use both hands to restrain his wife. Julia snarled and tried to turn back on him. 

“Lucretia,” Magnus pressed as Julia pushed him to the floor snarling in anger. She was already so much stronger than him? Just because of a zombie bite? He pressed against her throat holding her just far enough away that she couldn’t bite him as well. “Jules not that I’m not into that, I think you should maybe chill.” 

“Almost got it.” Lucretia pressed stirring the liquid waiting for- there! The water turned pink and she quickly stuck her arm in the boiling water to fill up a bottle. She handed it to Hurley who took the bottle and just shoved it into Julia’s mouth forcefully. Shocking the woman just enough that Magnus could get away. They all watched with tension as Julia took a drink of the potion her grey-green skin cleared up… and then she keeled over backward the bottle falling out of her mouth on the way. Magnus yelped in concern and Lucretia sighed with relief. 

“She’s going to be fine. Where are the others?”

“Johann’s on his way to the hospital according to Kravitz,” Davenport answers a headset on. “Noelle says he’s stable but they need more equipment than what they have here.” 

“Kravitz isn’t a surgeon!” Lup protests walking in with Taako and Ren. 

“No. But mom is.” Sloane waved, “I called her like. Yesterday? and she’s getting a team together and flying in on a helicopter. Lup you should take Taako out there with Hurles and I and help us clear the hospital of zombies.” 

“Oh.” Lup blinked, “Okay!!” 

“Great! Kravitz took the ambulance so we’re gonna need to run-” 

“Here!” Lucretia handed them a milk jug full of the pink liquid. “Everyone needs to drink this. Zombie or not.” 

“Uhh.” Sloane looked disgusted. “Why?” 

“Because it’ll make you immune.” Lucretia pressed. “Now GO.” 

* * *

 

Taako passed out in the car and woke up in a hospital bed three days later. His leg was raised up in the air and the room was still spinning. He reached a head up and felt his hair and choked back a sob. He remembered the man taking a huge chunk out of his hair. As if he had intended to scalp Taako but Magnus scaring him had caused the man to miss. The entire handful of Taako’s hair was just gone, leaving an absolute mess. Then the man’s friend proceeded to come at Taako with a knife. He reached a hand up and gently brushes the cut on his lips. Taako felt the anxiety- the despair swirl around him. He did this to himself. He deserved it. He seen what Lup and Barry and- Oh god Johann. He  _ DID this to him _ . 

“Hey, Taako.” Barry’s voice came and Taako jumped flinching as Barry sat up on the couch. “How you feeling?”

“Kill me right now Barold. I refuse to live like this.” Taako joked but his voice cracked at the end and he had to cover his mouth to muffle the sobs. 

“Is there anyone else in here?” Taako asked and Barry shook his head. 

“Lup’s talking with Ren about where June’s going to go from here.” Taako didn’t respond he just opened his arms and Barry gently leaned down to hug him. He knew he could be honest around Barry. They’ve been through shit together. It was just different with the others. Taako could feel his mishap of a hair move when Barry hugged him and Taako snapped. He sat up best he could. 

“Barry shave my fucking hair.”

“Now?” Barry blinked shocked. “Taako it’s like midnight.”

“Now.” Taako’s voice wobbled. “Please.” Barry sighed and stood up. 

“Let me go find some scissors-” 

“No Barry I want all of it. Gone. SHAVED Barry. Bald as a baby.”

“Well not all babies are-“

“ _ Gone Barry,”  _ Taako’s voice broke into a coughing sob. “I’m ugly enough as is.” 

“Well, then that’s absolute bullshit.” Barry rolled his eyes. “Taak-“

“Can you just go get a razor? Please?” Taako snapped

“Fine.” Barry walked out of the room leaving taako alone to his thoughts. 

 

It seemed like ages before the door opened again. 

“It’s about goddamn time- FUCK” Kravitz stood in the doorway holding a razor bag looking very confused.

“T-taako? Uh, Barry sent me in here. He said to tell you. Uh. Something about how he talked to his disaster and now it’s your turn?” Taako did not want to hear this. He didn’t want Kravitz to even SEE him. He- “Taako? You in here?” 

“H-hey Kravitz.” Taako sat up. If he was serious about this, if Kravitz meant anything to him. If Kravitz was honest to god was in- Taako didn’t want to finish that thought “Uh. You wanna turn on the lights?” He was propped up on his elbows. “I have zero idea how this fucking bed works and it’s a pain.” 

“Huh?” Kravitz blinked shocked. “Oh! Oh yeah!” He flicked on the lights and moved to get to Taako’s side before skidding to a stop. Taako’s heart dropped. He knew it. He knew it he- “so that’s what the razor was for,” Kravitz laughed. “Taako, Love, you look like Sloane when she found our mothers razor.” Taako wasn’t sure he was registering this. Kravitz called him  _ love _ . He called Taako.  _ Love.  _ “What was it you wanted to talk about?” Kravitz asked and Taako realized the bed had been sat up into a reclined position. 

“Okay, first and foremost I want this shit off. All of it.” his voice cracked at the last part but he shook his head. It was too much to try and save it. 

“Oh! Okay, I can do that uhh. Here let’s move you a bit so you don’t get hair on the bed” kravitz smiled and after a few moments of shifting furniture and twisting taako around he finally got taako leaning with his neck off the bed. “There. Now don’t move okay? I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“Of course not. That’s been overdone.” Taako muttered and Kravitz laughed. Taako’s heart leapt into his throat. Kravitz’s Laugh was like wind chimes on a summer morning. Beautiful. He sat in silence for a beat trying to figure out how to word his next sentence. 

“I suppose so.” He mused, “Their passing out the cure.” Kravitz sounded grim. “And uh. Mom says the hunger hasn’t gone past the city.”

“Oh.” Taako paused frowning. If it hadn’t gone past the city then why- 

“Taako. Do you still want to- I mean I-“ Kravitz groaned exasperated. “Taako do you want to break up?” Taako stared up at Kravitz mouth agape. “Can I even call it that? We were together for like a day. We went on one date. If I can even call that a date. But I- I just know that you have options out there Taako and I don’t want to keep you in a relationship if you don’t want to be in it.” Taako stared at Kravitz. Oh my god. Kravitz, he- he was being serious. Taako cackled. He brought his hands to his stomach as he laughed till his sides hurt. 

“Krav. Oh my god you absolute fucking  _ disaster _ .” Taako lay on his back staring upside down at Kravitz as he pulled Kravitz face down squishing his cheeks. “I can’t believe we were worried about the same damn thing.” Taako let out another giggle. “Kravitz look at me. Look at this ugly ass mug. I’ve got a broken nose, a fucked up knee for probably forever. And I’m gonna be bald in a little bit. Do you want to break up with me? You’re hot as fuck, your laugh could brighten an entire city. You’ve got a fucking job once this is over. Do you want to break up with me?” 

“No!” Kravitz sounded hurt that Taako would even think like that. “Taako I’ve loved you since my sisters birthday party  _ Last Year. _ ” It was Kravitz turn to squeeze Taakos cheeks. “Taako. I  _ love _ you. I remember watching you and your sister to an overboat cooking show for Sloane. Everyone loved that.” Kravitz paused. “I still can’t believe you noticed  _ me _ in the back of the room.” Taako’s eyes widened and his ears flicked up. He winced in pain from the movement but he was to busy dying of embarrassment.

“FUCK. KRAV I WAS DRUNK AS FUCK DURING THAT.” 

“And yet somehow you managed to find your way into my heart.” Taako slapped a hand over Kravitz’s mouth.

“Fuckin Sap.” He hissed and Kravitz took Taakos hand in his own and kissed it gently. And then kissed the back of his hand. And the palm and then he just held it staring at Taako. 

“I love you Taako. I would love to continue forward with our relationship if you’ll have me.” 

“Fucking sap.” Taako repeated this time more lightheartedly as he pulled kravitz down into a gentle kiss. There was a beat of silence as they stared at each other. “Okay now get shaving I wanna look like a baby’s fucking ass.” Kravitz laughed again and taako watched in awe as his face lit up like the moonlight peeking through the window. 

“So, what do you plan to do after this?” Kravitz asked as taako felt his hair lighten up. 

“Don’t got a fucking clue my dude.” 

“You could go back to the ICRE?”

“Haha FUCK NO!” Taako snickered and he felt Kravitz inhale sharply. “Did you cut yourself?” Taako tensed worried. Kravitz shook his head. 

“Sorry, I’m almost done.” Taako flicked his ears down. 

“You’re quitting the ICRE?”

“Well if there was a place to submit my two weeks notice they would have been in last month.”

“Davenport?” Kravitz suggested and Taako laughed. 

“That man took my two weeks and then added his name to the bottom.” He paused, “So did Barry, and Lup, and Magnus, and Merle, And I’m sure Lucretia did too.” 

“So- oh! I’m done.” Kravitz brushes Taakos head off gently and Taako felt like he wanted to throw up. He felt so  _ naked _ without his hair. Kravitz handed him a mirror and it was about as bad as taako suspected. Kravitz must have noticed Taakos expression because he pulled the mirror down. 

“We can get some wigs?” He offered and Taako’s ears perked up. That was right! Wigs were a thing! He turned to stare at Kravitz tearfully. 

“I want the Gayest fucking wig we can find.” He said determinedly. Kravitz broke into a grin, which proceeded to lead into a chuckle, which turned into a laugh that shook Kravitz’s body. Kravitz took a seat on the bed beside Taako and kissed his hand. And then his cheek and then his forehead, and his other cheek. And then on the lips. With every kiss, kravitz only laughed out the words. 

“I love you,” kiss on the forehead. “I love you,” kiss on the cheek, “I love you,” kiss on Taakos neck, “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.” Taako wrapped his arms around kravitz and pulled him down into a lying position. He couldn’t fuck the hot man yet. But he was gonna cuddle with him as much as possible. Kravitz willingly obliged and soon they were tangled in each others embrace on Taakos bed. Careful to keep Taako’s leg from getting squashed. Taako watched Kravitz slowly drift to sleep, the soft smile on his face and his head on Taakos chest. And. Uh. Wow. 

 

Taako was in love. 

 


	19. The end

The cure took a full month to disperse. The few zombies that they had the chance of turning had already sustained mortal injuries. Most didn’t wake up after being given the potion. But the few survivors of the city flocked to the hospital once word got out that they were safe there. For every person that entered Lucretia had a cup of the cure waiting. The ICRE had moved carefully to the hospital, Fisher, and Johann clinging to Magnus the whole way there. 

Julia was one of the few who woke up. She walked out into the hallway of the hospital looking like she just woke up from a long nap. Curiously she walked into the commons area where she found Lucretia talking in a hushed conversation with Davenport and her family. The most surprising thing was that she  _ walked _ despite having a fucked up leg just the day before. Magnus ran at her and she yelled as he pulled her into a hug. Angus ran at her tears of joy flowing as he cried out. 

“MOM!”

“How’s my boy doing today!!” Julia caught him and threw him into the air, planning on catching him and holding him in a hug. Instead, Angus went soaring into the air much higher than Julia intended so when she caught him all she did was set him on the ground very carefully. 

“My turn!” Magnus Jokingly ran at her. They’ve done this a few times. Magnus will run and jump in place in front of her while she pretends to lift him- The room went silent as Magnus was being held up off the ground with minimal effort coming from Julia. 

“Uh….” Julia set her husband down suddenly very scared.

“Luce? You seen that right?” Magnus turned to Lucretia who placed a hand on her chin. “No one else developed super strength so what gives?”

“That would be why so many people did that in their culture!” Lucretia realized. “It must be a genetics thing!” She gasped with excitement and started writing in her journal quickly. Davenport let a soft chuckle out. It was nice to see the old Lucretia shining through. 

“So uh. Super strength?” 

“That’s hardly what it is.” Lucretia interrupted. “It’s more like any nerves in her-“ Magnus and Julia stared at her blankly. Lucretia sighed. “She’s got super strength but it’s more like CrossFit games winner super strength than Superman super strength.” 

“I’ve never competed in the CrossFit games though,” Julia frowned and Lucretia groaned louder. 

“Okay. Magnus can lift things and his brain tells his muscles when they’re tired because a thing is heavy.” She paused. “Makes sense?” Julia and Magnus nodded. Angus was listening intently. “Your brain just forgot how to tell you a thing is heavy. So you suddenly are able to lift double what you’re used to. You’ll still fatigue, and you are in twice as much danger of injuring yourself from overexertion. But yes. Essentially. Super strength.” Julia nodded and glanced over at Magnus who was nodding thoughtfully. 

“I think I got it… but just in case. Tell it all to me again I wasn’t listening.” Julia laughed and Angus stomped his foot. 

“Dad!!” 

Lup walked out of the bathroom rubbing her now bare head with a towel. “Holy shit my head is so much lighter!” She laughed to Barry “I don’t have to wash my hair now!” She noticed Taako, in a wheelchair, staring at her. 

“Sup KoKo!” Lup waved brightly. “Like it?” 

“You guys look like models.”June murmured from Barry’s lap where Barry was gently brushing her tight coils into a pair of pigtails. Lup turned smugly to Taako who had his eyes covered. 

“Are you alright Taako?” Kravitz asked from behind his boyfriend's wheelchair. 

“No, my sister looks like a fucking clown,” Taako whined and Lup cackled. Everyone pretended not to notice Taako wiping away the tears. 

* * *

 

Johann woke up next. And once again he was unable to scream. He was in a dark room, alone, and the last thing he remembered was a sharp stabbing pain in his throat. He felt his breath quicken and he opened his mouth to scream only to have a sharp pain in his throat and started coughing instead. 

“Johann!” Avi sat up causing Johann to flinch. Was he- What- 

“Where am I?” He let out a hoarse whisper 

“Nonono, don’t talk. Miss Raven says you gotta stay quite so your vocal cords can heal.” Avi held out his hands moving to sit beside Johann who slowly moved his hand up to his neck. He covered his mouth immediately afterward. “Johann?” Avi asked gently placing a hand on Johann’s shoulder. The young intern clung to Avi’s shirt and let out harsh coughing sobs. They took the only thing that made him worth being around. They took his words. Avi hesitated and hugged Johann. “Hey, buddy?” Avi gently held Johann’s shoulder pushing the young boy up. “I’m gonna go get one of the adults-” 

“You are an adult” Johann mouthed at him before sobbing again. Even that hurt. 

“U-uh yeah. I guess you’re right. Fine. I’m gonna go get an adultier adult. Alright?” Johann simply nodded weakly. He didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t sing, he couldn’t do anything. Oh god. His speech scholarships. 

Lucretia was led in by Avi to a full-blown panicked boy and Lucretia flashed back to her conversation with Johann in her messy office. 

“Avi, can you give us a moment?” Lucretia pulled out her notebook and pencil and walked over to Johann as Avi nervously closed the door to the room. “Johann. Lup told me what you did in there.” Johann merely shook his head biting his lip to avoid talking. Lucretia set the notebook and pencil in his lap. 

Johann quickly scribbled out the words  _ I was an idiot and they took my voice _ .  _ What am I supposed to do now? I’m  _ **_useless_ ** . 

“Johannel Bartholomew Evans!” Lucretia tore the book away from her intern. “You are everything BUT useless. You are intelligent and smart, and play the violin better than any human being on this planet. You are  **_not_ ** useless.” Johann stared at her. “Johann you couldn’t have known that would have happened. You did the best with the situation at hand and you came out alive. And I am  _ so so _ proud of you.” She stopped when Johann started crying.  _ Shit.  _

_ “Thank you _ .” He sobs in a harsh whisper. “I’m sorry.” 

“You’re going to be fine Johann. It’ll be okay.” Lucretia pulled the young man into a hug. “You’re worth so much more than your voice. I promise.” 

* * *

The adults sat around a coffee table drinking alcohol and snacks that team sweet flips somehow wrangled up. They deserved to celebrate.

“So. You’re saying I’m half zombie now?” Julia asked Raven Mcallister who had finished giving her a checkup. 

“… sure.” Raven sighed, “your resting heartbeat is slow enough that you should be in a coma.” 

“Oh hey sweet.” Julia sat in Magnus’s lap casually. “I’m supposed to be brain dead but instead I’m just undead.” She glanced over at Kravitz, who was leaning forward over Taakos wheelchair his arms wrapped around Taako lovingly. “What do you think reaper man? I’m breaking the laws of life and death here. You gonna send me to ghost jail?” Julia teased and Kravitz chuckled. 

“Well. Isn’t undead literally defined as not dead?” He asked and Julia nodded slowly. “Then you’re just alive. And I see nothing wrong with that.” The group laughed at this and for a brief blissful moment, they sat in silence. 

“So now what?” Lucretia asked breaking the silence. “We can’t keep living in a hospital forever.” She gently pats the large pot that the cure was in. “And we’ve almost got the whole city covered.” The room went silent.

“I want to move to the beach.” Merle decided. “I’m sick of the consistency of a city. I wanna change it up, man.” Merle grinned, “I could open up a bar. Call it Merlegaritaville.” The entire group laughed at this. 

“There’s a town not far from Bottlenose cove. It’s up. Uh, it’s up in the cliffs just north of it actually. And uh. It’s pretty well known for its craftsmanship. Dad- uh- Dad had some family up there.” Julia glanced up at Magnus. “If you’re finally done working for a business that won’t let you tell your wife jack shit. Do you want to help me open up a Carpentry shop up there?”

“Huh?” Magnus stared at his wife dumbfounded. 

“Magnus I’m going to take over my grandpas Carpentry shop.” Julia laughed. 

“But what about the others Or Fisher and Junior?” Magnus asked pouting, The two jellyfish in the corner of the room perked up at their names. “I can’t just leave them.” 

“Well, I think we can handle taking magical jellyfish from the Amazon with us,” Julia admits. “We could get a big backyard.” 

“Well, cha boy doesn’t really have any ideas for what to do in life. So if you want a live-in chef I could do that.” Taako shrugged

“We could get a house down in bottlenose cove,” Lup suggested. “Close enough that Magnus could visit every day with no issues.” 

“You and Taako could start a YouTube channel,” Hurley suggests and the group stares at her. “Okay, you guys were drunk and somehow taught Sloane’s entire party how to cook some boss ass hamburgers. Imagine what you could do sober?” Lup blinks and looks over at Barry. 

“I have some experience with computers.” Barry offered. 

“We could put hammer and tails on the north end of bottlenose,” Julia suggests and they all eagerly start planning out the next chapter of their lives. Davenport lets them talk however and turns to Lucretia 

“What about you?” He asked and Lucretia hesitates. She’s not entirely sure. 

“Well, I kinda wanna stay here.” Killian interrupts the excited chatter. The room stares at her. “This City is going to need help for a long time. And you guys have done your fair share of helping. But Carey and I? Well. We’re gonna stay here and help rebuild.” 

“I can stay too.” Noelle offered. “If you’ll take me?” She smiled at the two girls who laughed and pulled her into a hug. Lucretia paused. 

“I think I want to stay and help also.” Lucretia offered and the ex employees all stared at her in dismay. “I can come and join you when the work is done.” She offered. “But for now. We-  _ I _ did too much to hurt this city to not want to help it.”

“Lucretia-“ Barry tried and Lucretia shook her head. 

“It’s alright. I  _ want _ to do this Barry. Besides, I can always come and visit.” She glanced over at Team sweet flips. “Is that alright with you girls?”

“HELL YEAH!” Carey pumped her fist. 

“I think I’m going to buy a boat.” Davenport decided. “I can hire myself out to people for some extra cash. Not that I’ll need that, my severance package should be plenty. Plus my retirement fund is almost 200 years old.” 

“God I forgot you’re old as shit.” Lup cackled and Davenport raised an eyebrow at her and the entire room broke into joyful laughter.


	20. Chapter 20

They were not given the happy ending they deserved. 

  
  


Magnus and Julia decided to open a Carpentry shop on the side of town furthest from the beach and closest to ravens roost. Junior and fisher weren’t fans of the seawater apparently.

“So you want me to build a house for two kids, two jellyfish, and seven- no nine- no. Like, 10 adults?” Julia stared at her husband who was nervously smiling at her. 

“Uh. Yes?” He smiled at her and Julia sighed rolling open her blank blueprint sheet. 

“Let’s get started.” 

* * *

 

Taako and Lup used their latest paychecks- which had been labeled “overtime” during the month-long hell they had just lived- to buy decent recording equipment and started making videos. June helped Barry learn how to edit the videos properly and often was his go to when he had a technical issue.

“Hi welcome to shiszle- slizle- FUCK!” Lup threw her arms in the air as Taako cackled at her. “Fuck off KoKo!” She snapped but she was laughing too. She took a deep breath and tried again. 

“Hi welcome to sizzle it up with the Taacos. We’re gonna make sure our broke ass friends out there still eat like their queens.” 

Within a week of the Hunger being cured Barry proposed to Lup and handed adoption papers to June in the same day. He had quit his job and lost his home but he had everything he needed right here, and he wanted to share that with June. 

 

Barry woke up in a cold sweat with yet another nightmare about Lup being missing. Alone in the Amazon. Again. Barry carefully sat up and reached over and underneath the bed pulling out the journal Lup had given him the Christmas after he had gotten her back. He already had the first entry memorized. 

“ _ Okay, so Barry. I know journaling is mostly Lucretia’s thing but you know what. Nothing is science unless you write it down and I gotta pretend I’m just doing science out here. I have to pretend. I gotta.  _

_ Barry. I think someone fucked with the plane.”  _

“Barry?” June whispered sitting up from the other side of Lup. “Are you okay?” 

He glanced over at Lup sleeping peacefully beside him. And then over at June staring at him in sleepy concern. 

“Yeah, sweetie c'mere” He set the book down and reached over carefully lifting her to rest in between Him and Lup. Lup peeked an eye open and noticed both Barry and June awake. 

“Again?” She murmured sleepily. 

“Like clockwork,” Barry answered laying down with June. Lup reached over and pulled Barry into a hug squishing June- who giggled- between them. 

“‘S Okay babe. ‘M not goin anywhere.” Lup promised like she did every night. Barry smiled and leaned over June to press a kiss to his fiancé’s lips, and then planted one on June’s forehead before whispering a promise. 

“I love you.” 

 

* * *

 

Davenport did exactly as he claimed. He bought a sailboat and rented it out to birthday parties occasionally. But for the most part, he just enjoyed taking his family out on the waters. 

“Davenport.” Lucretia was visiting for the day, “this is nice.” She gestured to the group on Davenport’s boat. June and Angus were both leaning over the edge while Taako and Lup warned them to be careful. Taako was sunbathing in Kravitz’s lap, Barry was hiding in the shade but smiled at Lup when she came to sit by him. Magnus and Julia were still back on shore working on the house. Merle had volunteered to stay and help today. June let out a squeal as a splash of water smacked her in the face. Davenport noticed Lucretia’s head snap up too quickly at that. 

“How are you doing?” He asked her. 

“I have my bad days,” Lucretia admits. “But so does everyone else I’m sure.” 

“Where’s your two teenagers that you picked up?” 

“Johann and Avi are going to Johann’s speech therapy and then they said something about stopping at a music store? “ Lucretia smiled cryptically. 

“Can’t imagine why.” 

* * *

 

Merle picked a small building near the beach and with a little help from Magnus, turned it into a successful bar.

“Hey!” Taako shouted his voice slurred. “Merle? Where the fucks your kids??” He cocked his head.

“Oh uh. Hekuba-“

“Oh god, Merle did they die during the Hunger?” Hurley’s head snapped up and Merle laughed. 

“No. No. Hekuba was taking them on a vacation and after that, they decided to move to-“ 

“DAD!” A familiar voice called and Merle turned arms- or what was left of his arms- open wide. Mookie skidded to a stop. “Holy shit you lost your arm!” Mavis smacked her brother upside the head. 

“Mookie that’s rude.” 

“HOLY SHIT DAD YOUR EYE!!” 

“MOOKIE!” 

* * *

 

Lucretia continued working with the others, Johann and Avi staying faithfully by her side.  Carey, Killian, and Noelle finding survivors and helping them relocate. 

 

Lucretia heard a hoarse scream and snapped her head up rushing into Johann’s room in the small apartment she had rented while they were helping fix the city

“Johann are you alright?” The boy nodded mutely and Lucretia sighed sympathetically. “Another nightmare?” He nodded again. “You know he’s never coming for you again right?” Johann hesitated and Lucretia took a seat beside him. 

“Why are you awake?” Johann whispered and Lucretia glanced st the clock. 3:00 a.m. When was the last time she slept? She couldn’t remember the last time she slept. She also couldn't remember the last time she closed her eyes and felt safe. 

“Didn’t want to go to sleep,” she admits to him and he places a hand on her shoulder. 

“You’re safe now,” He promises and Lucretia laughs. He makes a gesture that she recognizes all to well and she reaches down pulling out his violin and handing it to him. “Do you want to stay in here? With me?” He offered and Lucretia nodded silently.

And he began to play. 

 

* * *

 

Kravitz worked with his job to transfer to a position in Bottlenose cove. And Taako was absolutely delighted when Kravitz told him the news. 

 

“So you’re going to stay here? With us?” Taako sounded incredulous. Today he was wearing an ombré wig that looked like a sunset. The company he found made the wigs look realistic though and he always bought two so Lup could match. 

“I’ve already talked with the clinic I’ll be working for. They even have an open spot for Noelle if she wants it-“ 

“HECK YEAH SHE WANTS IT!” Noelle shouts from Killian's shoulders. 

“But you. Want to stay here. With us?” Taako repeated and Kravitz smiled. 

“If you’ll have me.” 

“Fuckin- get down here and kiss me Sap!” 

* * *

 

Magnus and Julia worked together and built a two-story house for everyone to live in. Everyone presenting their own talents and offering to help. 

* * *

 

 

There were many ups and downs. The trauma of that month sat with everyone for a long time. Merle still had days where he couldn’t even move from the phantom pain.

Lucretia had entire weeks she would go without sleep just to avoid nightmares. (These would always end with a cuddle session. Especially after she moved into the house with the others.) Johann’s voice was never the same, but he still played music nonetheless. 

Julia would overexert herself on accident and end up needing the entire next day to recover. 

Taako still woke up from nightmares about his sister, covered in blood, staring up at him with a pained expression screaming something incomprehensible. But now he woke up to Lup, perfectly healthy, or Kravitz, perfectly comforting. 

June still cried for her dad at night, and Barry and Lup knew they couldn’t fill the hole her father had left. That didn’t stop them from loving June with every fiber of their being. 

Davenport found a group therapist they could go to and forced  _ everyone _ in the household to go. His family was suffering in a way he recognized all too well. And he wouldn’t stand for it. 

Yet despite all of this they found ways to laugh. Ways to love, and ways to work around and with each other. They found joy in being around each other er. With every meal, every therapy session, every time someone volunteered to let everyone stay in their room. For every customer that got scared away by fisher. They took Merle’s words, something he had given to them a long time ago. 

They chose joy. 

 

And No. They weren’t  _ given  _ the ending they deserved. 

 

They built it


End file.
